


No Stronger Bond

by nfna118



Series: Filling the Gaps [8]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Comfort, Healing, M/M, Post-Season/Series 01, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24528556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nfna118/pseuds/nfna118
Summary: Saturday, November 12, 1983.Joyce smiled softly at the two gently snoring boys. It would take a while, but things would be okay again, and they could help each other heal. They’d always been there for each other; there was no reason for that to change now.- or -Mike and Will begin to process last week's supernatural events, healing together.
Relationships: Will Byers & Mike Wheeler, Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Series: Filling the Gaps [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1723810
Comments: 23
Kudos: 129





	1. Resurrection

**Author's Note:**

> A retrospective on the events of Season 1 as seen through the eyes of Mike and Will, setting the stage for more post-S1 fics.

**Saturday, November 12, 1983**

“Mom! _Mom_!”

Karen turned around, craning her neck to look into the backseat. Mike was leaning forward, straining against his seat belt, eyes wide with urgency and glistening with unshed tears.

“It’s okay, Michael. You’re safe now. We’re going home, and everything’s going to be okay, and we can talk –”

But Mike had already exploded into speech, running over her words. “Home? Home? We have to go to the hospital! The hospital!”

Karen tensed. “Michael. Are you hurt? Is Nancy hurt?”

“What? No!”

“Then wh–”

“Will, Mom. Will.”

“Oh, sweetie…”

Mike watched his mom’s eyes start to fill with tears. “No. Mom, I can’t. Not with you, not right now. But Will’s alive. He’s _alive_. Chief Hopper and Mrs. Byers went to rescue him. They might already be back. And they’ll take him to the hospital. And I _need_ to see Will.” And, okay, now he could feel the sharp sting of tears running down his own cheeks again, but dammit, he _needed_ to see Will more than he’d ever needed anything in his entire life. Will was gone, and then he wasn’t, and now El was gone, and he _couldn’t_ keep losing people. There was a small part of him that knew Will was close to dying when Eleven had found him, that he could already be dead, that Hopper or Joyce might not have found him in time, but he squashed those thoughts because Will just _had_ to be alive. He _had_ to be.

“Michael, look at me, sweetie. Will – we – we went to his funeral yesterday. He’s – not coming back.”

“Mom.” Mike’s eyes opened impossibly wider. “Look. I can’t tell you everything, but you need to trust me. Will’s _alive_ and we need to go to the hospital. We need to go to the hospital. _Now_. I need to see him. I _need_ to see him.” He took a shuddering breath and collapsed into sobs. Karen reached out, but Mike batted her hand away and pulled back. “ _No_. I don’t need your pity. I just need to see Will.”

“Michael – Michael!” But he just turned away and stared out the window, refusing to acknowledge her the rest of the ride home.

* * *

“What the –” grumbled Ted as they turned down their street. “Not _again_.” Mike glanced forward, and saw the blue flashes of police lights coming from their driveway. It didn’t matter, he supposed, since Eleven was dead, but now it would take longer to get to the hospital, now it would take longer to get to Will, because they’d ask questions, and hadn’t he already gone through enough the past week?

“Dad, turn around. Please. Can we just go to the hospital first and at least _check_ if Will’s there, and deal with this later?”

“No, son,” Ted murmured. The police are here to help. Did you know there’s been a dangerous Russian spy on the loose? Some girl with a shaved head. You haven’t been hanging out with anyone like that, have you?”

“What? No!”

“Good, that’s what I told them – that you don’t, uh, fraternize with females yet.” He chuckled softly as Karen stiffened imperceptibly.

Mike frowned. _What was_ that _supposed to mean?_

“Ted –” Karen began, then evidently changed her mind. “Mike, honey, you know you can tell me anything, right?”

“Oh my god, Mom, yes. I _know_. What I’m telling you is that I need to go to the hospital to see Will. _Now_.”

But of course Ted said some nonsense about duty and patriotism and the responsibility that comes from living in a free country, and his mom just _sat_ there and didn’t do anything. Mike tried to steel himself and vowed to get out as quickly as possible. Worst come to worst, he could always sneak out the back and bike – shit, his bike was still at the junkyard. But maybe he could –

“Michael. Michael? _Michael_!” He gradually became aware that his mom was trying to get his attention.

“What,” he grunted.

“Before we go in… I – I need to know. Do you know this girl? Was she in our house? What has been going _on_ this past week? I know things have been – hard, with Will and all –”

“He’s not dead!” Mike all but screamed.

Karen sighed heavily. “Look. We are _going_ to go talk to the police now, then after that we can – go to the hospital, okay?”

“Fine,” Mike muttered. Karen bit her lip. She didn’t know how many more times she could bear to see her children’s hearts broken that week.

“So this girl…?”

Mike thought quickly. Clearly the Bad Men knew part of the story. He couldn't avoid it forever. “Yeah, okay. We met her in the woods when we were looking for Will. She told us she could help us find him. And she did. Mrs. Byers and Chief Hopper are rescuing him now – like I already told you. But these Bad Men that came to the house earlier – they’re trying to capture her. She’s not Russian. Well, I don’t know actually, but she’s not a spy. She didn’t tell us much - she can barely talk - but I’m pretty sure the government’s, like, torturing her, and –”

“That’s nonsense,” Ted interjected. “The government exists to help and protect us, Mike. If they’re looking for this girl, she must be dangerous.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Dad! She saved my life!”

“Language,” Ted interjected sharply.

“You know what? Fuck you, Dad!” Mike yelled, before breaking down into sobs. “F- fu- fuck,” he managed through his tears.

Ted parked as close as they could to their driveway (he’d have to remember to move later, since they were doing street cleaning tomorrow morning). Karen walked back to help Mike out of the car, but was startled when he got out on his own, stone-faced, with no hint he’d been crying save for a hint of puffiness around his eyes. “Let’s get this over with,” he snarled, “And then we’re going to the hospital to see Will.”

Mike stomped sullenly up to the front door, his parents presumably following. The door was already open, so no need for keys. He got inside and paused, disoriented by the number of agents swirling around. They all had wires in their ears and were putting more wires everywhere that he could see – phones, lightbulbs, even toys with electronics he’d left lying around. Two agents pulled him into the living room as soon as they noticed him, a man and a woman.

“Michael Wheeler?” asked the woman, as she motioned for him to sit down on the piano bench.

Mike stared back silently.

She sighed. “Look. We can be here all night if you want, or you can answer a few questions and we’ll be on our way. Are you Michael Wheeler?”

Mike nodded curtly as _I need Will – I need Will – I need Will_ ran on repeat through his head. He sat down and the woman drew up a chair to sit down as well.

“My name is Agent Johnson, and this is Agent Blodsworth. Do you recognize this girl?”

Mike stared at the picture of Eleven, with her wide eyes and shaved head, and he shoved down the traitorous tears that were welling up again. He thought about denying it, but they knew already, they must, and it was really hard to lie with every ounce of his being on edge and _Will – Will – Will_ crowding out all his other thoughts.

They kept asking question after question. Mike gave them an abbreviated version of the events of the past week, leaving out any mention of her powers except the van flip and the agents and the Demogorgon slaying, because they obviously had to know about those.

About halfway through, he realized – why did they even care? Eleven was gone, was – dead. She’d sacrificed herself so that Will ( _Will – Will – Will_ ) could come back from the Upside-Down. Didn’t they know that? Or did they think – was there a chance? And now his thoughts had a new cadence – _El – Will – El – Will_. If there was even the slimmest chance he could have both of them…

But the questions kept coming, and he did his best to keep up with them, telling them the bare minimum. Some he legitimately didn’t know the answers to. “Did she attempt to contact anyone outside of Hawkins?” “Did she display any bipolar tendencies?” But he held himself together until – “If she’s still alive, where do you think she would be hiding?”

His face shut down. “No.”

“Let’s go back to the beginning.” Agent Johnson said, with her infinite supply of patience.

“I told you everything.”

“I understand this is difficult, Michael.” Blodsworth now.

“I don’t know where she is. And even if I did, I’d never tell you. I would _never_ tell you.”

Agent Johnson kept saying something, more lies about how she was dangerous. But then he glanced out the window, and he saw –

No. It couldn’t be.

He saw Eleven staring back in, bruised and bloodied, but very much alive. He must have zoned out, because the next thing he knew, Blodsworth was turning around and suddenly all the agents were tearing out of the house.

He sat stunned. Could he have hallucinated? Or could she actually be – was there a chance?

But he couldn’t do anything about that tonight without running afoul of federal agents. There was one thing he _could_ do, now that the agents were done harassing him.

“Mom! Dad! Let’s _go_!”

* * *

As soon as Ted parked the car at Hawkins General Hospital, Mike flew out, his seat belt already unbuckled, not bothering to wait for his parents, ignoring his mother’s half-hearted call of “Michael!” that dissipated in the chilly air behind him.

There was no feeling that compared to when he skidded to a halt at the receptionist’s desk, yelled out, “I’m here to see Will Byers!” and she pointed to a room, off to the side, where he saw Hopper, Mrs. Byers, Nancy, Jonathan, and – Steve Harrington? They were back. They were here. They were waiting. Which meant that Will must be here, must be alive. Will was alive. Will was _alive_.

He dashed off to the waiting room as his parents finally entered the lobby. Joyce noticed him first. Even though he knew, he still had to _know_ – “Is he?” he asked, eyes wide.

Joyce bit her lip and nodded jerkily. “He’s alive,” she whispered, almost reverently. She nodded some more. “He’s weak. He’s really weak. He’s sleeping and they’ve got him hooked up to some tubes while he recovers, but – he’s alive.”

Mike threw his arms around her, and if she could feel the tears soaking into her shirt, well, she didn’t say anything.

“Thank you,” she whispered, squeezing him tighter. “Thank you for never giving up. I don’t think he’d be alive if not for you – and Dustin and Lucas and El. It was –” she shuddered – “Close. Too close.”

Before Mike had a chance to ask more, Nancy had come over and wrapped him in a hug from behind. “You’re safe,” she whispered into his hair.

He struggled for a moment and managed to turn himself around so he could hug her too. “Yeah, where were _you_? And what happened to your hand?”

She flicked her eyes to their parents, who were just now entering the room. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Okay,” Mike nodded, extricating himself. “Thanks, Chief,” he said, nodding again. “Thanks, Jonathan.” He glared at Steve. Steve threw up his hands, and Mike frowned, wondering why he was all beat up. Steve quieted at a look from Nancy, and Mike assumed it would be part of the later explanation. By now, Ted had taken Nancy’s seat next to Steve, so she sat next to Mom. He sat down next to Jonathan at the end of the row of chairs. He’d never been particularly close to Jonathan, but when Jonathan put an arm around his shoulder, he gratefully leaned in. After all, Jonathan was like 50% Will, right?

Soon enough, Dustin was there, with Lucas following along in short order. Mike gave each of them a nod as they entered, balanced at a perfect equilibrium between laughing and crying. Will was _alive_. By now, they’d run out of chairs, so Joyce and Jonathan excused themselves to go check on Will. Mike stood up to go with them, but the nurse said it was family only or some bullshit like that – for all intents and purposes, Mike _was_ family, had been since they were five. But instead he sat and sulked and waited.

* * *

**Sunday, November 13, 1983**

The room started out in oppressive silence – they couldn’t talk about anything _real_ with Karen and Ted in the room, and what was there to say except, “Man, hope Will wakes up soon”? By 12:30 or so, Lucas and Dustin had nodded off, and Mike was left alone with his thoughts. How long would Will be out? How long would he have to stay in the hospital? Was El alive? Was she safe? Had the Bad Men found her? Would Will blame him for letting him bike home alone so late? What had happened to him in the Upside-Down?

Sitting around and not being able to do anything, he decided, was pretty terrible. He kept bouncing his legs until his mom told him off, and then he split his time between staring at the wall across from him and staring at the ground. He felt his eyelids drooping several times, but kept pinching himself to stay awake. He _needed_ to stay awake for Will. It was the least he could do. Sure, he would see his mom and brother first, but even if Will didn’t need to see Mike right away, Mike – needed to see him. He couldn’t risk his parents letting him sleep and not waking him up to see Will the moment he regained consciousness.

Jonathan came in a few times, just to stretch his legs and reassure them that nothing had changed – all of Will’s vitals were fine, he was just sleeping from exhaustion. By now it was the fourth or fifth time – Mike had lost count – but his head still jerked up at the sound of the door starting to open. _This could be it_. His eyes were wide, searching, asking, needing. All the previous times, Jonathan had shaken his head slightly and tightened the corner of his lips, each time looking a little more haggard. But this time, he sighed, then nodded, mouthing, “Come on.” A split-second to make sure it wasn’t some kind of awful joke, then Mike was on his feet without being totally sure how he got there.

“Guys,” he urged, shaking Dustin and Lucas. “Guys, he’s up. Will is up. Guys. Will’s up.” And he was off, not able to wait any longer. “Guys, come on!” he shouted back as he rounded the doorframe.

“113,” Jonathan called after them, and oh, Mike supposed he probably should have asked that first. He glanced at the room numbers as best he could as he tore down the hall. 107… 109… 111… 113. He flung the door open and – there he was. Will. Will was alive.

Will looked up as soon as he was through the door, and Mike saw his eyes light up. “Byers!” he cried as he flung himself on Will. He needed to _touch_ Will, to _feel_ that he was there, that he was alive. He rested his head on Will’s chest – yep, his heart was beating – and if Lucas pressed him even closer, well, so be it. Dustin flung both of them off for better access, and Mike took a moment to collect himself and drink in the sight of his best friend. He looked small – well, he was small, and the hospital bed made him look even smaller, but his eyes shone bright like always. Mike could get lost in Will’s eyes. What if he had never gotten to see them again, what if –

Dustin and Lucas were babbling, telling Will something of what had happened in his absence, but Mike tuned them out until Will coughed. Not just a single cough, but a whole coughing fit.

“You okay?” Mike asked, reaching out and touching his elbow. _He’s real, he’s alive, he’s here_.

“It got me. The Demogorgon.”

Mike kept staring at Will, struggling to put words together coherently. “We know. It’s okay. It’s dead. We made a new friend. She stopped it. She saved us. But she’s gone now.” _Gone. Not dead. Not yet. But Will’s here now. And that’s what matters_. And then Dustin and Lucas were off to the races again, and Mike let himself get dragged in, because Will was smiling and his eyes were sparkling and Mike didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so beautiful in his entire life.

* * *

Other people flitted in and out of the room. Mrs. Byers and Jonathan were there most of the time. Nancy and Steve and his parents dropped by occasionally. He didn’t remember seeing Hopper at all, not that he was paying that close attention.

Before he knew it, his mom was back. “Michael, it’s almost 3 AM. We need to go home.” Will’s eyes widened and he shot out a hand, catching Mike’s wrist. He made a sound halfway between a gasp and a whimper.

Moving closer to Will, Mike turned to face Karen. “Mom, I need to stay here. Will needs me. Needs _us_ ,” he clarified, gesturing to Dustin and Lucas as well.

Karen’s eyes softened. “Are you okay with that, Joyce?”

Joyce nodded. “Yeah, I’ll keep an eye on them. You can come back in the morning.”

Karen rubbed her eyes. “Okay. Thank you. Come on, Nancy.”

Truth be told, the Party was barely keeping their eyes open either. “Time for bed, boys?” Joyce asked softly.

They all made weak noises of protest, but their yawns betrayed them. Jonathan was already passed out in a chair, and Dustin and Lucas made their way over to some more.

“My shoulder is _not_ your pillow this time, Dustin,” Lucas grumbled angrily.

Dustin rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say, Lukey-bear.”

Lucas scoffed indignantly, but was too tired for any other form of protest.

Meanwhile, Will’s hand was still clutching Mike’s wrist. He whispered something.

“Huh?” asked Mike, leaning closer.

“Stay?” Will breathed into his ear.

“Yeah, of course I’m staying, Will.”

“Stay,” he whined and tugged him closer and – oh. Of course. If Will was right next to him, there was no way he could disappear again tonight. He kicked off his shoes and slipped under the covers of the narrow hospital bed as Will shifted over to make room. It was a tight fit, but then Will curled up and tucked his head into Mike’s chest, and Mike’s arms couldn’t go anywhere else but around Will’s frail body, holding him close, keeping him safe. It didn’t take long for either boy to drift off.

Joyce smiled softly at the two gently snoring boys. It would take a while, but things would be okay again, and they could help each other heal. They’d always been there for each other; there was no reason for that to change now. She fell asleep with a smile on her face.


	2. Intervention

**Sunday, November 13, 1983**

Mike lazily blinked his eyes open as he slowly regained consciousness. His bed felt different than normal. And he felt warm. Not in a bad way – a really nice way, actually. But why was he in his clothes and why was there hair near his face... – and suddenly all the memories from last night came rushing back. His legs were all tangled up with Will’s, and his right arm was asleep under Will’s body, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this content with the world. He breathed in, and even though it was mostly unfamiliar hospital smells – Will must have showered at the hospital with weird disinfectant shampoo or something – there was still an undercurrent that he couldn’t describe but was unmistakably Will.

He lay there for a time – maybe a few minutes, maybe an hour – just existing, soaking everything in. Of course, it couldn’t last. He heard the turn of the doorknob as it slowly opened, and several pairs of footsteps entered. There were little sighs and “aww”s, and he knew that the moms had arrived. He hastily closed his eyes – fortunately he was facing away from the door – and opened his mouth slightly, slowing his breathing to feign sleep.

He felt a hand gently shaking his shoulder. He yawned and settled back down, still pretending to be asleep, not ready to leave this liminal state.

“Michael, time to rise and shine.”

He blinked his eyes open again, groaning. “Don’t wanna.”

“At least get up to eat something?” He sighed in exasperation, but his stomach rumbled at the mention of food, betraying him. He spent a minute carefully extricating himself from Will without waking him up. He spent another minute wrinkling his nose and hopping from foot to foot as he got pins and needles all down his arm, but at least he got to watch Dustin and Lucas trade whispered barbs back and forth – he gathered that Lucas must have used Dustin as a pillow this time.

“Couldn’t resist his charm, eh, Lukey-bear?” Mike needled.

Lucas turned to face him, eyes narrowed. “You’re one to talk, Mr. Let-Me-Cuddle-Will-All-Night-So-Nothing-Bad-Ever-Happens-To-Him-Again.”

Mike’s eyes flashed and Dustin, sensing the impending argument, punched Lucas in the shoulder while shooting a warning glance at Mike. “Do you two wanna wake Will up by fighting, huh?”

Mike backed down as Lucas muttered, “Sorry.”

Seeing that they were clearly ready to go, the moms broke out of their whispered conference with Joyce and ushered their charges out the door towards the hospital cafeteria. “Are you sure you don’t want to come down with us, Joyce?” Lucas’s mom asked.

“Yeah, I’ll – I’ll stay with Will. Jonathan can just get me a muffin or something later.”

Mike was the last one out, and he lingered a moment, watching Joyce bend over a peacefully slumbering Will.

* * *

Breakfast was uneventful. Once more, they were stymied from real conversation by the presence of their moms, so they mostly rolled their eyes at the boring mom gossip as they scarfed down their food.

Mike’s heart rate increased as he noticed that they were being herded towards the hospital entrance instead of back to Will’s room. “Mom? Where are we going? Will’s room is down there,” he added, pointing helpfully.

“We’re going home, sweetie,” his mom replied, and Mrs. Henderson and Mrs. Sinclair nodded in agreement. “Will needs some peace and quiet, and it’ll be good for you to be home too.”

“But, uh, but – but – my coat and backpack are still in Will’s room!” It wasn’t even a lie. Dustin and Lucas had their coats with them, but Mike had honestly forgotten that Nancy had dropped his things at the foot of the bed sometime last night before she left.

Karen sighed but relented and followed Mike back to room 113. Dustin and Lucas weren’t so lucky, and Mike awkwardly waved good-bye to them. “Keep the Supercomms on, yeah? I’ll call tonight.”

“Yeah, for sure.”

“You got it, Mike!”

Mike cautiously eased open the door, his mom close behind – but when he got inside, he saw he needn’t have bothered. Will was awake! His eyes fastened on Mike as he entered, and once Will recognized him, he broke out into a grin. “Hey, Mike,” he said quietly. “Are Dustin and Lucas still here?”

“No, their moms just took them home. And my mom wants me to go home too…”

“Oh.” Will’s face fell. “I – okay.” By now, Mrs. Wheeler was in the room, and Will switched tactics. “Hi, Mrs. Wheeler!” he said cheerily, turning his smile to her.

“Hi there, Will. How are you feeling?” she asked, all motherly bustle and concern.

“I’m okay, thanks for asking. I was wondering if –” he coughed, and then broke off into a fit of coughing. He composed himself, then continued. “I was wondering if Mike could maybe stay with me? It would – help a lot, knowing that he’s here.” Mike watched him activate the puppy-dog eyes that always worked on Mike, and apparently on his mom too. (Why couldn’t _he_ figure out how to do that?)

Mike heard her sigh fondly and smiled himself, knowing the answer before he heard it. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt if Mike stays a little longer. I’ll be back to pick you up before dinner, though, got it, mister?”

Mike nodded, but he was already moving towards Will’s bed. “Yeah, great, thanks Mom. See you later!” He heard Mrs. Byers and his mom talking for a little longer, but he tuned them out in favor of rummaging through the box of goodies Jonathan had brought. “Oh, sweet!”

“What is it?” asked Will, trying to sit up to peer into the box.

Mike came up clutching some of Will’s favorite comic books. “Wanna read some X-Men?”

“Heck yeah!” Will’s face lit up again. It had been a while since they’d read comics together – once they’d started playing D&D together on a regular basis, there were lots of group sleepovers, and it was great, but – so was this.

“So, how we gonna do this, Byers?” he asked. Will had migrated back to the center of the bed, a tray of partially-eaten food over his lap.

“Uh…”

“Here, if I can just…” Mike dropped the comics back on the bed and started awkwardly trying to lift the tray up.

“Mike! What are you doing?” Mrs. Byers had noticed them again.

“Uh, moving the tray so I can read comics with Will?”

“Why don’t you just pull up a chair?”

“No!” Mike and Will cried in unison.

Mrs. Byers sighed and rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay, then let me…” And as soon as the tray was out of the way, Mike had already hopped up onto the bed and began snuggling himself under the covers. Joyce watched as he propped Will up, snaking an arm around his shoulders so they could see the comic together. She made herself scarce as Mike began a dramatic reading, not wanting to interrupt what was clearly a private moment. Plus, this was the longest she'd seen Will look happy in a long time, certainly since the Upside-Down.

* * *

Mike had gotten so engrossed in the comic that he kept reading a few more pages before he realized Will had drifted back to sleep. He gently laid the comic down and looked around for something to do. Jonathan’s box was out of reach, and his right arm was helping to support Will, so he wasn’t exactly at liberty to move. Joyce and Jonathan had left to go get some food themselves, so he let his head fall sideways and closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of Will.

He didn’t remember drifting off, but when he woke up, Will was shaking and whimpering. Mike was instantly alert, and started trying to shake Will awake. He resisted at first, but after a few seconds, his eyes flew open and he was breathing heavily.

“Will! Will! Are you okay?”

Will’s eyes darted around for a few moments – Jonathan and Mrs. Byers were _still_ out – before they finally came to rest on Mike. They locked eyes for a moment, then Will looked down and opted to bury his head in Mike’s chest instead. Mike played with his hair and the tension slowly ran out of Will’s body.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Mike ventured once Will seemed to stabilize.

Will shook his head violently, tensing back up.

“Okay, yeah, that’s fine,” Mike reassured him, carding through Will’s hair again. “I’ll be here if you do wanna talk about it, but it’s totally cool if you’re not ready yet.”

“Thanks, Mike,” Will whispered hoarsely.

Joyce and Jonathan returned a few minutes later wearing new clothes – they must have gone home to change and freshen up. As soon as Joyce saw Will’s condition, she ran over to the bed. “Oh, sweetie, are you okay? Did you have nightmares again?”

 _Again?_ thought Mike, then remembered he hadn’t been there when Will had woken up that morning. _Fuck. I should have been there._

“What happened? Can you tell me about it?”

“No, Mom!” Will’s voice was small, but it was clear he wasn’t amused. Mike couldn’t remember the last time Will had been short-tempered, but he supposed he had every right to be. “I told you, I’ll talk about it when I’m ready.”

“But, Will, if you open up, we can –”

“I said no, Mom!” He clutched at Mike, and Mike squeezed him back.

“Maybe later?” Mike whispered so only he and Will could hear.

“Yeah, maybe,” Will whispered back.

* * *

Time passed in fits and bursts for the rest of the afternoon. Will drifted in and out of sleep. Doctors came in and out of the room. Sometimes he talked with Jonathan and Mrs. Byers. But whatever time he thought it was, he was wholly unprepared for his mom to show up.

He glanced lazily up at the door as it started to open. He assumed it was another doctor or nurse coming in to glance at Will’s tubes, ask a few questions, and leave. His eyes widened as he saw his mother enter the room.

“What,” he said defensively. Will glanced over at Mike, wondering what had put him on alert.

“It’s 4:30, Michael,” Karen stated, after greeting Joyce and Jonathan.

“So?”

Karen frowned. “So, you need to come home for dinner. You can visit after school tomorrow. Will will survive a night without you.” She chuckled, not noticing the way Mike and Will tensed up, or how Will clutched the hem of Mike’s shirt.

“But Mom!”

“No buts, young man. You’ve spent the whole day with Will –”

“Yeah, after you all thought he was _dead_ for a week!”

“Michael.” Mrs. Wheeler had her stern face on.

“Yes, Mom,” he grumbled, and he took his sweet time extricating himself from the bed and gathering all his belongings. Will followed his progress with his eyes, and weakly held up his arms when it seemed Mike was set to leave. Mike tumbled into his embrace. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay, Byers? Don’t go disappearing on me again.”

“I won’t,” whispered Will. “I promise.”

Karen frowned at Mike as they walked out to the car. Mike was as jittery as she’d ever seen him, practically bouncing off the walls. Normally when he had this much energy, his mouth was running a mile a minute, but now he wasn’t saying a word.

“Michael?” she ventured.

He grunted.

“What’s on your mind?”

He ignored her as his face contorted through several different expressions. “Nothing,” he muttered.

Karen pursed her lips. She’d been getting this attitude much more often recently from both of her older two. As much as Mike professed to disdain Nancy, he really did take after her a lot. And Nancy had been quiet all day, too. They’d found Will in the woods even after they’d pulled that other boy out of the lake – surely there was a better chance of finding Barb?

“Okay, well, when you _are_ ready to –”

“Yeah, Mom. I know.”

* * *

Of course dinner had ended in a shouting match, Mike reflected as he stomped upstairs. There was like a 20% chance on a normal night, and this was far from being a normal night. Mom had said something about maybe finding Barb soon, which set Nancy off, and then Dad said something about how he was sure she was fine unless that Russian girl got to her, which set Mike off, and, well, he felt a little bad for Holly, but she wouldn’t remember this anyways. He couldn’t really remember anything from when he was her age. Just when he was – _five, and in kindergarten, and all alone, and then he met Will_ – and then his mind was all _Will-Will-Will_ , and Will was in the hospital and he was stuck here, and he stomped down the hall and slammed the door and flung himself face first on his bed to muffle his tears.

After a few minutes, there was a light knock on the door. “Go ’way, Mom,” he muttered.

The door eased open. “It’s me, Nancy.”

He frowned in confusion, then slowly rolled onto his side, rubbing at his eyes to surreptitiously wipe away the tears. As he focused again, he saw Nancy’s eyes were puffy, like maybe she’d been crying too.

“Our parents suck,” she stated.

Mike snorted in surprise. “Well, yeah. What else is new?”

“No, really. They suck. Will just got back after being in –” she shuddered – “That _place_ for a week.”

“The Upside-Down,” interjected Mike.

“Yeah, the Upside-Down,” she agreed, “That – place with all the mold and rot and – that monster, the – Demogorgon.”

“Wait.” Mike was suddenly alert. “How do you – Did you –”

Nancy drew in a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah. Jonathan and I were out in the woods looking – there was this deer, then the monster – and I crawled through a tree, and I was _there_ , and Jonathan saved me and –” She broke off and shivered. “I can’t imagine living there for a _week_.”

Mike nodded.

“Jonathan stayed over that night. Ew, not like _that_.” She made a face as Mike raised his eyebrows suggestively. “But – having someone there helps with the nightmares, y’know? I’m guessing Will’s been having them too?”

“Yeah, but I think it helps when –”

“When you’re there. Exactly. But instead Mom and Dad want you back here, when you could actually be out there helping Will and –” She turned away and sniffed.

“I’m – sorry about Barb,” Mike ventured.

“Thanks.” Nancy smiled ruefully. “I still don’t – I still can’t – but I’m sure it’ll hit me soon that she’s –” her mouth twisted – “gone.” She shook her head. “But we need to find a way to get you to the hospital to be with Will.”

Mike rolled his eyes. “Trust me, I tried. Mom won’t listen to me. She wants me to go to _school_ tomorrow! And my bike is still in the junkyard and –”

“So who _would_ they listen to?”

“The Bad Men, apparently. Dad was going on and on about patriotism last night and –”

There was a knock on the front door. Both Mike and Nancy jumped and fell quiet. By silent agreement, they crept to the top of the staircase to listen.

“Ted, can you get that?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going.”

Too many seconds later, they heard the door open. “Chief. What can I do for you?”

“Is Mike here?” Mike and Nancy both let out a breath. It was just Hopper.

“I think so. Mike?” Ted called.

“Yeah?” Mike yelled back.

“Yeah, he’s here,” Ted replied. “What do you need him for?”

“I, uh – I need to talk to him and Will about this Russian spy business. Just a few loose ends to tie up.”

“Sure, sure,” Ted replied, “For the good of our great country, right?”

“Uh, yeah. That,” said Hopper. “Anyways, uh, it’ll probably be a while, so it might be better if he sleeps at the hospital again tonight, if that’s okay? I wouldn’t want to disturb you by bringing him back late. And you could call him out of school tomorrow. The kid’s been through a lot, y’know?”

“What the hell,” whispered Nancy as Mike’s eyes lit up. He ran back to his room to stuff some overnight things in his bag. When he got back, Ted and Hopper were still haggling over details.

“I am sorry about Barb, y’know,” said Mike. “I can’t imagine – well, I can, actually, cause Will, y’know, and anyways, I’m sorry.”

He stiffened as Nancy wrapped her arms around him, then relaxed and awkwardly patted her on the back. “Be careful,” she whispered.

“Yeah, of course. Bye!” he yelled as he flew down the stairs.

* * *

“Look, kid,” Hopper growled after a few minutes of silence. “I don’t have any questions for you or Will.”

“Huh?”

“I’m doing this for Joyce, you understand?”

“Understand what? No, I –”

“ _Jesus_ , kid, does your mouth ever stop running?”

Mike shut up.

“I went in to check in on Will, see how he’s doing, and it turns out he’s been having nightmares.” _No, duh_ , thought Mike. “He’d just woken up when I got there, and Joyce and Jon were there, but – look, the kid clearly needs you, okay?”

Mike nodded fervently.

“And I’m _just_ doing this as a favor to Joyce, you understand?”

“Yes, sir!” Mike’s tone was just this side of impertinent.

Hopper raised an eyebrow. “I can always turn this car around, you know.”

Mike inhaled sharply. Hopper glanced over, and was shocked to see him on the brink of tears.

“Kid – Mike. I was _kidding_. Calm down. You’re gonna get to spend the night with Will. Looks like you could use it too, jeez.”

By now, they’d reached the hospital. “Thanks, Chief,” muttered Mike as he hopped out of the cruiser.

“Don’t mention it – seriously. You’re just lucky I owe Joyce a favor.”

When Mike entered Will’s room, he saw Joyce standing next to the bed, with Will’s arms wrapped tight around her. His body jerked periodically like he was crying, but Mike couldn’t hear any sobs.

“Oh, thank god,” muttered Joyce as she saw who it was. “He’s been asking for you, Mike. You hear that, Will? Mike’s here.”

“Mike?” Will’s voice was small and he didn’t move from his position against Joyce’s chest, but he stuck out a hand tentatively. Mike didn’t hesitate to grab it, and Will’s hand tightened convulsively around his own.

“I’ve got it, Mrs. Byers,” he said as Will slowly transferred over to Mike’s embrace. “What happened?” he asked Will.

Will didn’t answer, or give any acknowledgment that he’d heard, so Jonathan answered instead. “He was sleeping, and then he started thrashing around and yelling your name, so we woke him up… but he just kept yelling and wouldn’t stop, so Mom sent Hopper to go get you. He won’t say anything about his dreams, but…” He trailed off, but Mike can fill in the rest – _but they probably weren’t pleasant ones_.

“Will? Will, can you hear me? Can you hear me, Will?”

Will nodded against his chest.

“I’m gonna lie down, okay, Will?”

Another nod.

Once they were prone and Will’s breathing had eased a little, Mike finally felt able to ask, “Can you tell me what your dream was about?”

He felt Will tense, but he rubbed his back and played with his hair, and he felt Will relax again. “I was – there again,” he managed shakily, barely a whisper. “And then you were there, and I was so happy to see you, I yelled out to you, but – it heard, and I tried to warn you, but it ran from behind you and you didn’t see in time and it –” He burst out into tears again.

“I’m here, Will. It didn’t get me. I’m not going to leave you. I won’t leave you. Ever.”

Will shuddered and buried himself deeper.

Mike was suddenly struck that he hadn’t heard from the rest of the Party in a while – for too long. “Hey, lets check in on the others, okay?”

Will nodded.

“Jonathan, can you pass me my bag?” Jonathan dutifully got up and fetched it from where Mike had dumped it unceremoniously on the floor. Mike pulled out the radio with one hand, the other still linked with Will's. “Lucas and Dustin, this is Mike and Will. Do you copy? Over.”

He could feel his heart rate increase as seconds ticked by and the radio remained silent. Now he was the one crushing Will’s hand. He was about to call again when –

“This is Lucas. I copy. Over.”

“I just wanted to make sure you’re – okay. Over.”

“Yeah, no Demogorgons in sight. Over.”

“Have you heard from Dustin? Over.”

“Oh, yeah. He’s been at my house all day. Over.”

“Hey, guys.” Dustin’s voice rang out and Mike and Will both visibly relaxed. “I’m here. Over.”

“Okay. G’night, guys. Over.”

“You too. Over and out.”

Mike felt Will yawn. “You ready for bed, huh?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Will replied sleepily.

“Okay, I’m gonna go change into my pajamas and I’ll be right back, okay, Will?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine.”

By the time Mike got back from the bathroom, Will’s eyes were closed and his breathing had evened out. His gaze fell on the radio still on the bed, and he realized there was one person he hadn’t checked in on. With an eye towards Will, he slowly picked up the radio, switching to a random channel. “El, I don’t know if you’re still out there or if you can hear me, but… I’m here. I hope you’re okay. …I miss you. A lot.” He waited a few moments before he turned it off and angrily stuffed it in his bag.

Will, who hadn’t actually quite fallen asleep yet, felt his heart drop. He fought hard to keep the tears from his eyes, but it was made a little easier when Mike clambered in to bed and unselfconsciously slipped his arms around him. He breathed in Mike’s scent – he hadn’t showered in a few days, so it didn’t take that much work – and slowly drifted off to sleep.


	3. Abduction

**Monday, November 14, 1983**

It wasn’t a particularly restful night for Will, and so it wasn’t a particularly restful night for Mike either. It seemed that Will had finally caught up on the sleep he needed, which resulted in long hours of staring at the ceiling, twitching at every beep of a machine, every footfall in the hall, every shadow flickering on the wall. Normally Mike was a pretty heavy sleeper, but when the boy in your arms was jerking around every minute or two, it was a little hard to ignore – not that he would have wanted to, anyways. The few times Will did manage to close his eyes were peaceful, though – not plagued by nightmares, or ones he could remember, at any rate.

The boys were awoken when Mike’s radio crackled to life at 7:42 AM. “Mike, this is Lucas. Do you copy? Over.”

Mike yawned into Will’s shoulder as he absentmindedly pulled him closer.

“Ew,” squeaked Will. “Don’t drool on me!” Their eyes met and Will tensed as he saw the mischief in Mike’s eyes.

Mike made t-rex chomping noises as he pretended to bite Will’s shoulder.

“Mike!” Will giggled, trying to push him off. “What are you _doing_?”

“Mike, again, this is Lucas. Do you copy? Over.” Lucas sounded a little frantic.

“Shit,” muttered Mike, glancing at his watch, “I forgot to tell them I wouldn’t be in school today. He draped an arm over the side of the bed to grab the walkie – “Ah-ha!” – and brought it back up.

“Mike! Do. You. Copy. …Over.”

“Lucas, calm down. It’s Mike. I’m at the hospital with Will. Hopper pulled some strings last night. I won’t be in school today. Over.”

“Lucky bastard.” Dustin now.

“We’ll stop by after school today, if that’s okay? Over.”

Mike and Will shared a quick glance. “Yeah, of course. See you then! Over and out.”

“Now, where were we?” mused Mike. Will’s eyes widened a split-second before Mike pounced down to gnaw on Will’s shoulder again.

“Mike!” spluttered Will, playfully fighting back, and then – “Mike!”, actually shoving him off as Jonathan entered the room. Mike took another few seconds to realize what was happening and both boys flushed a deep red as Jonathan glanced back and forth in confusion, before giving up all hope of understanding and shaking his head.

“So anyways,” he started, “I have good news, buddy. You get to have breakfast in the cafeteria today!”

Mike watched as Will’s eyes brightened, practically sparkling. “Really?” He hadn’t been allowed out of bed since he got here, except to use the bathroom.

“Yeah, really,” replied Jonathan, matching his grin.

“Well, what are you waiting for, Byers?” asked Mike, throwing off the covers. “Let’s go!”

Will flushed again, pushing down his hospital gown. “Uh, can I maybe change first?”

“Ugh, fine, Byers.” Mike rolled his eyes. He looked Will up and down – he was even skinnier than before, which wasn’t really surprising. He might even have said Will was even cuter than usual if he didn’t know the backstory. _What the fuck?_ he thought. _Where did that come from?_

“Uh, Mike,” ventured Will haltingly. “I know I’m attractive, but a little privacy, maybe?”

Now it was Mike’s turn to flush as he quickly turned around. Jonathan barked out a short laugh, but furrowed his eyebrows, glancing at Mike. Mike refused to meet his gaze, digging some of his own clothes out of his backpack.

In short order, they had both changed – _were Will's clothes always that big on him?_ – and although his eyes were bright, his stride faltered as he walked towards the door. Mike and Jonathan both reacted instinctively, but Mike got there first, wrapping an arm possessively around Will’s waist. “I got him,” he told Jonathan, glaring.

Jonathan held the door as they stumbled through, Mike supporting Will as they giggled and tripped over each other down the hall.

As they turned the corner, one of the fluorescent lights overhead flickered. Will froze immediately, almost causing Mike to fall flat on his face. Once he’d recovered his balance, he realized Will was shaking. He immediately got in front of Will, putting his hands on Will’s cheeks and staring into his distant eyes. “Will. Will! Can you hear me? Can you hear me? I’m right here, Will.”

After a few seconds that felt like an eternity to Mike, Will let out a breath and seemed to come back to himself. By now, Jonathan had made it over, but Will collapsed inwards to Mike’s chest as he blushed furiously. Mike caught him awkwardly, cradling his head. Will breathed in Mike’s scent again and let himself just lean against Mike. Seeing Mike was about to fall over, Jonathan managed to support them both.

“Oof,” muttered Mike, “For a bag of skin and bones, you sure weigh a lot, Byers.”

“Do not!” replied Will, muffled by Mike’s shirt. “You’re just weak.”

Mike scoffed. “Oh, guess I’ll just have to drop you on the floor, in that case.” He loosened his arms slightly, but Will stood upright on his own. He ducked his head, but Mike caught a glimpse of his grin. “That’s what I thought. Come on now, I’m _starving_.”

“Boo-hoo,” teased Will, but accepted Mike’s arm around him as they continued on down the hall.

* * *

It was mid-afternoon. Jonathan had stayed with them awhile, and they all jammed out to his mixtape. Mrs. Byers had showed up at some point to relieve him, and she was in and out of the room, sometimes hovering over Will with nervous energy and sometimes out in the hall talking to doctors. Meanwhile, Mike began to realize how jumpy Will was.

When the overhead light flickered and Will stopped mid-sentence to quickly dart his head around, Mike had finally had enough. “Will,” he said carefully, looking into his eyes, then darting away when it started to feel too intimate, “I know you don’t wanna talk about things, but I think maybe it could help?”

Will’s hands started fidgeting. “Mike, I dunno. I –”

Mike caught Will’s hands in his. “Look. We can trade off, alright? We don’t need to do it all at once. We can just… tell each other stories, yeah? We can tell each other stories!”

Will was still squirming, looking down at their joined hands and purposely not meeting Mike’s gaze. “You know I’m no good at telling stories,” he whined.

“What? No! That’s not true. That’s not true at all. You help me with campaign ideas all the time. And remember when you told us about that kid Tommy you met at your dad’s? Or, oh, y’know, _any_ time you talk about Chester?”

“Shhh,” urged Will, trying to cover Mike’s mouth with his hands. “Fine. Okay. I don’t know – I don’t know how much I can get through, but –”

“That’s fine. Just tell me as much as you can, then I’ll tell you some stuff, because, oh man, so much has happened, but yeah. And I won’t bother you about it again until tomorrow. Deal?”

“You promise?” Will finally looked up.

“I promise,” said Mike, squeezing his hand. “How do you wanna do this?”

“Can we, uh,” started Will, turning around and letting his legs hang over one side of the bed.

“Yeah, yeah,” agreed Mike mirroring him so they sat back-to-back, leaning against each other. Will took a minute to let their breathing sync up, then began.

“So I was biking home like usual. Dustin challenged me to race back to his house, winner gets to take a comic book from the loser.”

“So what’d you win?” interrupted Mike.

“Mike! I’m trying to tell a story here!”

“Yeah, yeah… sorry.”

“And how’d you know I won anyways?”

“Oh, come on. You know you’re faster than Dustin. You might be skinny, but you’ve got some endurance.”

“Yeah, that’s right, Mr. Can’t-Run-To-His-Mailbox-Without-Getting-Winded.”

“Shut up,” Mike said fondly, leaning his head back into Will’s.

“So anyways… I _did_ win, and I’m gonna take his X-Men 134.”

“Ooh, Dark Phoenix. Good choice.”

“ _Mike!_ ”

Mike sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Will leaned his head back in acknowledgment. “So I was on my own biking the rest of the way home, like usual. I was almost home, on Mirkwood, thinking about… things, and then my headlight flickered, and then when I looked back up at the road, there was this – well, I thought it was a man at the time, but the proportions were all wrong. I didn’t want to hit him, so I swerved off the road and crashed in the woods. I assume you found my bike?”

“Yeah, Hopper found it the next day. I can’t believe you just left it there!”

Will frowned. “I kinda had bigger concerns on my mind at the time? This weird guy had just run me off the road, and there were weird noises, and it was dark and cold and… Anyways, I wasn’t that far from home, so I ran through the woods and made it back home, because unlike _some_ people, I actually have stamina.”

Mike elbowed him. “But then where were your mom and Jonathan?”

“I think – I know Mom had a late shift. Jonathan probably picked up an extra shift because he knew I was spending all day at your place? He’s been doing that a lot lately. Or maybe he was just out taking photos? But it was just Chester there when I got home. I locked the door, but Chester wouldn’t stop barking, so I looked out the window, and it – it had followed me home. I tried to call the police, but maybe I dialed a wrong number, or it – it was messing with the phone lines, because I could only hear it growling on the other end. And Chester wouldn’t shut up, and then it – then it unlocked the door. Like, Mike, I know that maybe doesn’t seem like a lot now, but at the time, it was a huge f- a huge deal. I just watched as the chain slid over on its own and I - I –”

Mike could feel him shaking. He reached his right hand over his own shoulder to let it fall on Will’s. Will took a deep breath and let his left hand meet Mike’s. Mike absently let his thumb rub back and forth over Will’s hand. “Where did you run?” he asked softly.

“To the shed out back. That’s where Dad kept the guns, and there’s still one or two back there.”

“Wait, you know how to –”

“Remember when my dad took us camping a few years back?” Will sighed.

“Oh, yeah…” Mike’s grip on Will’s hand tightened momentarily.

“So anyways, I loaded the gun, and then…” he trailed off.

“And then?” Mike questioned. Will didn’t seem tense; he just wasn’t saying anything.

“I… I don’t really know what happened, to be honest. I was waiting in the shed, pointing the gun at the door, scared out of my mind. But then I thought I heard it – behind me? So I turned around and then the light bulb got really bright, and then suddenly there were vines everywhere. I – I guess I was in the Upside-Down, but I don’t know what that had to do with the light bulb? But I wasn’t thinking about that at the time because now the shed door was open and the – it –”

“The Demogorgon?”

Will tensed. “Yeah, I know. I just. Okay,” he rambled, steeling himself. “The shed door was open and the Demogorgon was outside, and I still had the gun. And I don’t know why – it was really dumb,” Mike made a small noise of disagreement, “but I thought back to our D&D game – your campaign, and how I didn’t cast protection, so I figured I might as well go for fireball again, right? So I shot it, but I couldn’t tell if I hurt it or killed it or missed entirely and just scared it off? But it was gone, at least. For now.

“I went back into the house, but the lights didn’t work and Mom and Jonathan still weren’t back, and everything smelled funny and, yeah, I know now that I was in the Upside-Down, but at the time I didn’t really notice – it was dark, and I was mostly worried it – the Demogorgon – would come back. So I sat up with the gun under my _Jaws_ poster, y’know? But I guess I was tired because I fell asleep just sitting there against the wall.”

“What was it like?” whispered Mike. “The Upside-Down, I mean? Nancy was there, but I never – I mean, I don’t –”

Will wriggled uncomfortably. “I’m glad you weren’t ever there, Mike. I hope you never get to see it. But, uh. Like I mentioned, it smells funny, like everything’s just a little bit rotten. You know how bad my sense of smell is, so it was probably worse than that, though. And there are these vines growing over everything. It’s like our world, but… decayed. Like, my house is there, but it’s like it was abandoned for fifty years or something, I guess. There’s no sun… or moon… or maybe there are, but you just can’t see them. It’s always dark, like just after twilight. And there are these – things floating through the air, like snow or ash or something? And it’s cold. Not freezing, but kinda like outside now. And everything’s so _constant_. There’s no way to tell how much time is passing without the sun, and my watch went on the fritz…” He trailed off.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Mike. “Do you wanna stop now? We can stop now, if you want.”

“No, I can keep going. It’s okay. I think you’re right. It’s good for me to talk to someone about this. And it’s good to try to remember and get everything ordered in my mind, y’know?”

“Yeah, I get it. So what happened when you woke up?”

“Well, when I woke up, I realized I wasn’t in the normal world based on all the things I just told you… my flashlight didn’t work, and I was really scared, but I remembered the last place I saw other people was out walking on Mirkwood and my bike was still there – at least, in the real world, it was. So I retraced my steps through the woods, and it was weird. I heard people calling my name. I thought I saw flashlights, even though mine didn’t work, but even when it sounded like they were really close, I couldn’t see anyone?”

“That must have been the search party!” interjected Mike. “They were out Monday night! There must be some sort of – bleeding between the two worlds? Or because you’re from the real world you could see back into it? Or – I don’t know, really, I’m just making things up.”

Will smiled. “That’s okay. But then after a bit, I _did_ see someone. It was a boy, probably about our age? With a buzz cut, and wearing one of those shirts from Benny’s Burgers, but it was way too big, like a dress? And he wasn’t wearing any pants?” He felt Mike tense up. “Oh, wait. Was that –”

“Eleven,” he breathed. “That was Eleven. You saw Eleven. That’s how she knew who you were!” His shoulders slumped, and Will wasn’t sure how to reply.

“So, yeah. _She_ saw me, then. But she faded away before we could talk, and I couldn’t find anyone else, so I headed back home to try to figure out some other way of talking to people. I tried talking through the TV, like –”

“Like in _Poltergeist_!”

“Yeah, exactly. But that didn’t work. So then I tried the Supercomm. I know I can’t reach any of your houses, but somehow I got in touch with my mom? She must have heard it from under the bed, I guess, but the connection was bad. Wasn’t designed for trans-dimensional use,” he chuckled darkly. “But even worse, the Demogorgon heard me, and then it was right there in my bedroom with me and –” he shuddered and let out a deep sigh, continuing on in a robotic voice. “I shot it again, but that was the last of the ammo, and I – couldn’t go back to that shed to look for more. I just couldn’t. But it was gone for now. But then I couldn’t reach anyone on the walkie either. I tried everything. I tried all the channels. I even went up on the roof to see if I could get better reception there. But no one could hear me. I wanted to warn you. I needed to warn you. I couldn’t let it get you, Mike. I couldn’t let it get you.” His voice had grown louder and more hysterical, and he sounded like was on the verge of a breakdown.

“Shhh,” said Mike, finally breaking position to gather Will in his arms. “That’s enough for now, okay? Let’s not do that much at once again. You’re not there anymore. You’re here with me. You’re safe.” He rested his chin on the top of Will’s head. “You’re safe. If a Demogorgon wants to get you, it’ll have to come through me.”

“Mike!” Will squeaked. “Don’t – don’t joke about that. That’s not funny.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry, I – didn’t mean it like that. All I was trying to say is that I’ll protect you. I’ll keep you safe.” _Like I couldn’t with Eleven_.

“Can you tell me some of your stories now?” Will asked quietly.

Mike frowned at him.

“I can handle it,” said Will seriously. “I’ll tell you if it’s too much. I promise. Do you trust me?”

“I trust you,” Mike replied immediately. “Of course I trust you, Will. I just wanna wrap you up and keep you safe and never let you get hurt again.” He laughed dryly. “But I can’t exactly do that, can I? C’mere,” he muttered, propping the pillows up. He sat up, leaning against them, and pulled Will between his legs, the back of his head resting on Mike’s chest. Mike absently played with his hair and he felt Will’s limbs go limp. “Is this okay?” he asked quietly.

Will felt the vibrations of Mike’s voice pass directly into his own body, and he was sure Mike felt more than heard his answering chuckle. “More than okay,” he replied. “Now tell me a story, Wheeler,” he whined.

“Impatient much?” Mike asked as he lowered his hands to tickle Will’s sides, but Will erupted in a coughing fit after a few seconds. Mike stopped immediately, smoothing his hands over Will’s chest. Once it subsided, Mike began.

“So as far as I knew, you had gotten home just fine. I didn’t know anything was up until the next morning. I was having breakfast, just behaving myself and minding my own business. But I guess your mom called mine and asked if you had slept over? Which, obviously not, but she figured you must have gone into school early. It felt a little off to me, but Occam’s Razor, y’know?”

Will smiled weakly. Dustin had discovered that concept over the summer and hadn’t shut up about it since.

“So we biked to school, and usually we meet you there, cause your house is on the other side of town. But you weren’t there. Lucas and Dustin agreed with your mom – they thought you had come in early to study in case Gursky gave another pop quiz or something.”

Will shuddered. “I mean, that sounds like something I _would_ do. I’m gonna be so behind in math now. Oh, god…”

“Hey, don’t be like that. I’ll help you get caught up, yeah? And Lucas and Dustin too, I’m sure. We all – well, Dustin mostly – were taking extra notes last week, so you won’t be too behind.”

“Mike, you didn’t have to –” Will had the _best_ friends.

“Hey, don’t be thanking me, Byers. I told you, it was mostly Dustin. Trust me, you don’t want my notes anyway. Even I can’t read them half the time.”

Will giggled. “Your handwriting’s not _that_ bad.”

“You flatter me, Byers. Anyways, we headed to the A/V room at lunch because –”

“It came in?!” Will sat up and turned around, and Mike could see the sparkle in his eyes. "How was it? What was it like? Who did you get to talk to?”

“Uh,” said Mike weakly, “Long story, but it’s not – fully operational right now,” he said as he pulled Will back into his lap, not wanting to see the disappointment in his eyes. “It’s part of the story, but later on. Anyways, Mr. Clarke said it could reach all the way to Australia, so Dustin and I tried hailing Australia, but before they could reply, Mr. Coleman came in with the Chief.”

“What did he want?” asked Will, confused.

“Hopper interviewed us about you. Your mom had already gone to the police and reported you as missing because she’s –”

“Overbearing?”

“…I was gonna say awesome. I wish my parents cared about me that much, Will.” Will found Mike’s hand and squeezed it. Anyways, we told him the route you went home, once Lucas and Dustin stopped fighting over whether Mirkwood was from _Lord of the Rings_ or _The Hobbit_ …”

“ _The Hobbit_ , obviously.”

“Well, yeah. I don’t know what Lucas was thinking. But they were just wasting time. There’s a time for arguing stupid points like that, but not when my best friend’s missing. Anyways, we told Hopper that we could help search, but he told us no, that we were supposed to just go home and stay home. But screw that.

“We got through the rest of the day, I guess. I wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on. I was just thinking about search and rescue missions and I couldn’t really concentrate on anything else. So I biked home and did all my homework really fast so Mom would let me go out after dinner.”

“Let me guess… She didn’t.”

“Yeah, no, duh.” Mike rolled his eyes. “Because she’s a bitch.”

“Mike!”

“Just saying… All Nancy wanted to do was go eat face with Steve. And Mom seemed to think you’d just magically be found if we stayed inside, and Dad just sat there like always.”

“I’m sure she was just trying to protect you.”

“Then she should have been out there with me! It felt like I was the only one who cared about you!”

“What about Dustin and Lucas?”

“What about us?” asked Lucas as he entered the room. He stopped for a moment (earning a small “Oof!” from Dustin as he crashed into Lucas’s backpack) and furrowed his brow when he saw the position Mike and Will were in. Will blushed lightly, but Mike just stared defiantly at Lucas, daring him to say something.

“You two haven’t gone homo in the last twenty-four hours, have you?” he joked.

“Can it, Sinclair,” Mike retorted. “You spend a week in the Upside-Down, then we can talk.” Will stuttered, avoiding Lucas’s gaze, but ultimately chose not to say anything. “I was just telling Will a bit of what happened while he was gone,” Mike continued. “I’d just gotten to Monday night. So even though my mom said I was on house arrest, I called Lucas and he agreed that we needed to go out and find you.”

“Yeah,” Lucas picked up, “And then I called Dustin and we all snuck out!”

“But how?”

“I mean, I just left through the basement,” Mike laughed mirthlessly. “Not like anyone noticed I was gone. Mom and Dad were watching TV or something, and Steve was sneaking into Nancy’s window when I left, so…”

“Ew,” muttered Dustin. “I told my mom I was going to bed early and just climbed out the window.”

“And I’m a ninja,” Lucas finished. “What?” he asked indignantly as everyone else stared at him in disbelief. “You’re just all jealous of my mad skills!”

“Lucas,” Dustin said dryly, “Just because you don’t trip over your own shadow like Wheeler here doesn’t mean you’re stealthy. I mean, come on, remember that time with Mrs. Peterson’s garbage can?”

“Shut up!”

“So… what happened?” asked Will quietly, redirecting the conversation.

“So we went down to Mirkwood where your bike was – the police had blocked it off,” Mike explained.

“And then it started raining,” complained Dustin.

“Yeah, so?” asked Lucas.

“So? I love you, Will, man, but going out alone in a storm the night after another kid our age goes missing? That reads like a horror story, man.”

“But _some_ of us thought finding you was more important,” growled Mike, glaring at Dustin as his hands gripped Will’s shoulders tightly.

Dustin held up his hands. “Hey, I admit it, I was wrong. So we were looking around for a while – in a raging thunderstorm, I might add.”

Lucas rolled his eyes. “And then we found her – Eleven.”

“The girl with mind powers?” asked Will.

“Yeah,” replied Lucas, “Although we didn’t know that then. At that point, she was just this boy we found in the woods.”

“Was she still wearing the huge Benny’s shirt?”

“Yeah,” said Lucas.

“Wait, how did you know that?” Dustin asked at the same time.

“I saw her – or a vision of her – in the Upside-Down that night,” Will said softly.

“What was it _like_?” asked Dustin curiously.

“Not now,” said Mike firmly, carding his fingers through Will’s hair to calm his sudden shaking. “I’ll explain later.”

Dustin gave him a weird look but backed down.

“So anyways –” Lucas now – “we brought her back to Mike’s house, cause like Dustin said, it was a thunderstorm –” Dustin nodded vigorously – “and she looked terrified.”

“But when we got her back here,” continued Mike, “she wouldn’t say anything.”

“And when we gave her a change of clothes,” Dustin practically shouted, “she just –” he flung his hands over his head.

“Huh?” asked Will.

“She just –” he widened his eyes and repeated the gesture.

“What Dustin is trying to say,” clarified Lucas, “is that she tried to strip naked in front of us.”

“Ew,” muttered Will.

“Yeah, ew,” replied Lucas, “although I bet Mikey wouldn’t have minded the view.”

Will felt Mike tense behind him. “No, gross, Lucas,” Mike shot back.

Lucas just grinned. “I mean, it makes sense now, since she grew up in Hawkins Lab, but we assumed she was from Pennhurst or somewhere.”

“That was just you, Lucas,” Mike replied. Dustin gave him a look but didn’t say anything. “So we came up with a plan… We couldn’t bring her to my mom right away, because then she’d know we’d been out. So she would stay there overnight, and then in the morning she’d walk around to the front door and pretend to meet me for the first time.”

“Wait, where did she sleep?” Will asked, sounding sleepy himself.

“I made a blanket fort under that workbench next to the door.”

“I told him he was mental,” said Lucas.

“No, I said that,” countered Dustin.

“Well, I said it first.”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“ _Guys_ ,” interrupted Mike. “Shh!” He gestured at Will, who had evidently drifted off into sleep.

“Were we that boring?” whispered Lucas.

“He still doesn’t have a lot of stamina,” replied Mike. “He’s been staying awake longer and longer, but… I’m not surprised.”

“We should get going soon, anyways,” added Dustin. “We didn’t tell our moms we were gonna stop by after school. Oh!” he added, digging in his backpack, “I took some notes for you. You gonna be in school tomorrow?”

“Probably,” Mike sighed. “I’ll call tonight and let you know, okay?”

“Sounds good. See ya, Mike!”

“Yeah, see ya,” added Lucas. “Tell Will we said bye?”

“Yeah, of course. Stay safe… call right when you get home, okay?” he added, a note of terror creeping into his voice.

Lucas frowned, but his face softened once Dustin elbowed him. “Yeah, of course, Mike.”

* * *

Of course, all good things must come to an end. Mike’s mom showed up at 4:30 again, and it was clear that she wouldn’t be taking no for an answer this time. Fortunately, Will was up by now – they’d been talking with Jonathan about what he called “real music” – so he didn’t have to wake him up to say good-bye. He did take his time hugging him, though. “I’ll call tonight, okay?” he whispered into Will’s hair.

“Call?” Will sounded confused.

“Yeah, buddy,” replied Jonathan. “Mike asked me to pick up a little something at the house.” He held up Will’s walkie-talkie.

Will’s eyes lit up. “Sweet! But –” he hesitated.

“Yeah, we can call from my house to the school remember? So range won’t be an issue!”

Will smiled in relief. “You’re the best, Mike,” he mumbled, giving an extra squeeze before letting him go.

“Yeah, I know,” Mike smiled in return, earning a punch in the arm. “Ow…” he muttered. “I’m serious, though, Byers. I’ll call tonight.”

“Okay,” Will nodded, seeing how serious Mike was.

“Just make sure you call before lights out,” Karen scolded as she ushered Mike out.

“Yes, Mom.” Mike rolled his eyes.

* * *

“How’s Will?” asked Nancy. Once again, she’d come to visit his room after dinner.

“He’s doing a lot better!” Mike’s demeanor visibly brightened. “He’s staying awake for way longer, and we got to eat in the cafeteria today!”

“That’s awesome!” Nancy smiled, looking genuinely happy. “Did he – did you – sleep okay?”

“Yeah. I mean, I did. Well, okay, I mean. I didn’t have nightmares, and he didn’t either, at least I don’t think he did…”

“But?” prodded Nancy.

“I mean, his sleep’s been all off recently, so he was just awake most of the night and all twitchy, and so obviously I was awake too. But when we were asleep, no nightmares, so… progress?”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“I just hate that I can’t be there for him, y’know?”

“I know. But Mom already said you can go over after school tomorrow night?”

“Yeah, but that’s so far away.”

“Mike,” Nancy chuckled, “You can’t be by his side 24/7.”

“Why not?” asked Mike fiercely. “I just – I don’t want him to ever get hurt again. I want to protect him. I want –”

“I know, Mike, I know. But getting hurt is part of life. He knows you’re there when he needs you.”

“I wasn’t,” Mike muttered under his breath.

“What?”

“I wasn’t,” he muttered, even softer.

“You’re gonna have to speak up.”

“I wasn’t!” he practically shouted.

Nancy frowned. “Wasn’t what?”

“I wasn’t there for him! I should’ve ridden home with him. I should’ve made him call his mom to pick him up. I should’ve – I don’t know – Maybe I should’ve been in the Upside-Down instead of him!”

“Mike! Don’t – no. It’s not your fault. It’s thanks to you that he got out at all. You’re the reason he’s _alive_ right now. You can’t – you can’t blame yourself.”

“Mm-hmm,” Mike agreed halfheartedly, still breathing heavily. “Anyways, I gotta call the guys before it gets too late. ‘Night, Nancy.”

“…Good night, Mike.” He might have thought he was being subtle, but Nancy noticed how he didn’t show his face as she walked out of the room.

* * *

Will had been dozing off when his radio crackled to life.

“Will, Dustin, Lucas. This is Mike. Do you copy? Over.”

“This is Will, I copy. Over.”

“Dustin, safe and sound. Over.”

A brief pause, then, “Lucas, reporting for duty. Over.”

Will let out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding.

“I’ll see you in school tomorrow… we can talk more then. Over and out.”

“Roger that. Over and out.”

Will frowned, but then heard two quick bursts of static and turned to channel five.

“Mike?” he asked.

“Hey, Will.”

“What’s up?”

“I’m scared. I… didn’t think it’d be so weird sleeping in my own bed.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Not that I’m in my own bed, but, y’know…”

“Without you,” Mike finished.

“…Yeah.”

They both fell silent.

“I’ll call when I wake up tomorrow, okay?”

“Y – yeah. That’d be nice.”

“And if you need me before then – or just wanna talk, or whatever – just call. There’s a fifty-fifty chance I’ll be awake anyways.” Mike chuckled ruefully.

“Yeah. Yeah, I will. Thanks Mike. You’re the best.”

Mike blushed. “Nope, that’s you.”

“Yeah, okay, you’re right,” agreed Will, giggling as he imagined Mike’s outraged expression. He yawned. “I’m nodding off. I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning, okay?”

“Yeah, I – yeah. ‘Night, Will.”

“Good night, Mike.” _I love you_ , he thought as he laid the radio down on his bedside table.


	4. Re-Integration

**Tuesday, November 15, 1983**

Mike dreamed.

 _He was in school, in Mrs. Gursky’s room. Well, it wasn’t her actual classroom, but she was there, teaching math, and Dustin and Lucas were there, and Will was – where was Will?_ Oh, right, _he thought._ Will’s still at the hospital.

_He leaned over to Dustin. “Hey, wanna go to the hospital again right after school?” Dustin frowned. “…Like you did yesterday?” he added, suddenly doubting himself._

_“…Why would we go to the hospital?” asked Dustin carefully._

_Mike’s eyes widened. Before he had a chance to reply, Mrs. Gursky looked up and he had to look like he was paying attention as his insides roiled. A few minutes later, he was able to continue._

_“To see Will?”_

_Dustin had an unfamiliar look on his face. “Mike,” he said gently, “We went to Will’s funeral yesterday.”_

_“Yeah, but the body was a fake.”_

_“No, Mike. That was the first funeral. Hopper and Mrs. Byers went to rescue him, remember, and they found him, but he was already – they brought back –”_

_Mike couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. “Already what, Dustin?” he gasped out, not caring if he was disturbing the class._

_“Already dead,” whispered Dustin._

_Before he could process, Mrs. Gursky looked up again, only it wasn’t Mrs. Gursky – it was the Demogorgon. It looked at Mike and opened its five-petal mouth and all he could see was teeth and maybe dying wouldn’t be so terrible if that meant he could see Will again and –_

He woke up in a cold sweat. He glanced at his alarm clock. 2:19 AM. He knew Will needed his sleep, he knew he shouldn’t disturb him, but… He reached slowly for his walkie. “Will,” he whispered, “this is Mike. Do you copy?”

* * *

Will dreamed.

_He was in Castle Byers, curled up in a rotting blanket. He shivered, saw the floating ash, smelled the rot – he was back there. He stilled himself, trying not to make any noise. Listening carefully, he just heard the normal oppressive silence of the Upside-Down. No Demogorgon close by._

_He chanced getting up and peering out the entrance. He was weak, but he’d have to get some more water soon, at least. He glanced around as best he could, then slowly stepped out of the illusion of safety the fort provided._

_As soon as he was over the threshold, he heard a screech from over his right shoulder. He pivoted in time to see the Demogorgon burst out from a tree trunk, dragging a body with it. Will froze. He’d seen enough of the dead and dying this week, so that alone wouldn’t have been enough to override his flight instinct._

_Then he consciously realized what his mind had already processed. He knew that body. That was Mike._

_His arm was gone, ripped off._ He’s right-handed, _Will noted absently._ Why couldn’t it have gone for the left arm?

 _Then he realized again. That was Mike. That was_ Mike _. His ears were full of static, but he realized after a few seconds passed that he was screaming, mainly from the facts that his throat felt raw and he’d never heard a Demogorgon make such a raw, heartrending sound._

_“Will,” Mike whispered as Will stood frozen._

_“Mike,” Will sobbed._

_“Will,” he said again, “This is Mike. Do you copy?”_

…What?

_“Do you copy, Will? Will, do you copy?”_

The dream slowly dissolved and Will was momentarily disoriented, his heart still hammering. “Guess not, sorry for bothering,” came Mike’s voice from the walkie. Will latched onto that and shot an arm out to grab it.

“Mike!” he cried.

“W – Will?”

“Mike!” He was still breathing heavily and sniffling.

“Will, Will, what’s wrong?”

“Nightmare,” he murmured miserably.

“Me too. D’you wanna talk about it?”

Will considered. “Not right now. Maybe when you come over this afternoon. Do you?” He could imagine Mike hesitating. “Don’t worry about me. I’m perfectly happy to listen.”

“Nah, I’m okay. I just – needed to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m here, Mike.”

“Me too.”

“You still have all your arms, right?”

“Uh, yeah. Got two, just like always.” Will could hear the underlying question in Mike’s voice, but chose not to address it.

“Cool, just checking.” He smiled.

“You gonna be okay?” asked Mike. “I can come over or –”

“Mike,” mumbled Will, “What time is it?”

“Uh, 2:23?”

“Go back to sleep, Mike,” Will said fondly. “I’ll still be here in the morning.”

“Promise?” Mike sounded so – small, so – broken.

Will put the walkie up right next to his face. “I promise,” he breathed.

“…Okay. ‘Night, Will.”

“ ‘Night, Mike.”

* * *

The rest of Mike’s sleep wasn’t exactly what he would classify as restful, but there wasn’t anything else as traumatizing as that first dream. He shook his head to clear his mind, then winced as his ear collided with something hard. He gingerly reached back to find – his walkie. He must have fallen asleep with it.

“Good morning, Will,” he called softly. “You up?”

“Mmph,” replied Will. “I am now.”

“Any more bad dreams?”

“Uh, not that I remember.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

“Yeah, me too. …I miss you, Mike,” he said plaintively.

“I miss you too, Will. I’m gonna see you real soon, okay? I just have to go to school first, then I’ll bike over right after.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ll keep my walkie on in my bag… for emergencies, y’know. Don’t get Gursky or Hamlin mad at me because you had a great sandwich for lunch, got it?”

Will rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mike, I know what an emergency is.”

“Okay, okay… I trust you.”

Will smiled. “Roger that. Over and out.”

Mike slowly rolled out of bed and changed out of his pajamas. The one good thing about Will being in the hospital (literally, the _one_ good thing) was that he was close enough to reach on the Supercomms. He didn’t know how he would handle it when Will went back to his house and they couldn’t check in on each other so frequently. He didn’t know how Will would handle it either. As he struggled to get his socks on, he suddenly had an idea. He’d just need to bike into town during lunch and – His mind froze. His bike. _Shit_.

He turned his radio to channel six. “Dustin, Lucas, this is Mike. Do you copy? Over.”

“This is Lucas. What’s up? Over.”

“Did you get my bike from the junkyard? Over.”

“Uhhh…”

“Shit. …Over.”

“Sorry man, it was only the two of us. Over.”

“Can I ride on your pegs today? Over.”

“Uh. Can’t you catch a ride with Nancy? Over.”

“She always rode in with Barb and…” he trailed off.

“Oh, shit. Yeah, okay. Usual time? Over.”

“Yeah, see you soon. Over and out.” He’d tell them the rest of his plan later, when it was too late to object.

* * *

Dustin at least had the good grace to look sheepish when he saw Mike riding up on the back of Lucas’s bike. “Sorry, man,” he muttered as Mike glared.

“You guys are gonna visit Will again today, right?” he asked as they pulled up to the school.

Lucas grimaced. “Uh, about that…”

Mike’s chest tightened. “What?” he choked out, eyes widening in terror.

“Well…” started Dustin, “We mentioned how we didn’t exactly tell our moms that we were visiting yesterday…”

“And they weren’t exactly thrilled about that when we got home, what with kids going missing and all…”

“So?” asked Mike.

“So we have to go straight home after school. We can visit again on – Thursday?”

“Thursday,” Lucas confirmed, nodding gloomily.

 _Shit, shit, shit_. “Shit,” he said out loud. “I promised Will I’d see him right after school. How am I gonna get there?”

“Uh, call your mom?” asked Lucas, “Like a normal person?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Mike sighed dramatically. I’ll go call her now. See you in class?”

“Yeah, man.”

* * *

Fortunately, his mom had decided to be a decent human being for once and agreed to drive him to the hospital after school (“Yes, Mom, I promise I’ll get all my homework done”), and he still managed to make it to class on time.

Of course, Gursky actually _was_ giving a pop quiz today (well, he wasn’t actually sure if it was pop or not, since he hadn’t been bothered to look at Dustin’s notes). Fortunately, she too saw decency and let him sit this one out given his spotty attendance the past week. Even though everything seemed to be going his way for once, he couldn’t seem to focus or keep still. His leg bounced up and down, his pencil tapped, his eyes darted around the classroom. Will was safe in the hospital. Dustin and Lucas were right there, furiously scribbling. El was – gone. Out of the picture. Mrs. Gursky was at her desk, definitely not a Demogorgon. And Mike?

Mike was… there. Physically, at least. His mind was at the hospital. But that was normal, right? When your best friend was dead and then in a parallel hell dimension and then in the hospital, you were supposed to think about him a lot, right? He thought about El too, but she was gone, and he thought he had seen her, but maybe he’d been imagining things? But she wasn’t here and Will definitely _was_ , and if Mike kept Will safe, maybe he could stop losing people he cared about. And he knew that his plan would make Will smile. It was going to work. It _had_ to work.

He pretended to pay attention as best he could for the rest of class, but ended up mostly doodling in his notebook. He’d just look at Dustin’s notes later – he could see him furiously scribbling two copies in real time. And somehow his handwriting was _still_ neater than Mike’s. Sometimes life was just not fair.

* * *

Before he knew it, it was the end of science class. He hadn’t been able to get his mind in gear all morning, which hadn’t been an especially great time during dodgeball. Dustin and Lucas had been sending him worried looks all day, and now Mr. Clarke was asking him to stay after for a minute.

“Wait for me outside, okay?” Mike told the other two.

“Ugh, fine,” grumbled Dustin. “But I expect some answers then!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Mike slowly made his way up to Mr. Clarke’s desk at the other two filed out of the room.

“Mike, it’s good to see you again!”

“Uh, thanks?” He shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot. “I mean, you too.”

“How are you doing?” he asked, sitting down. Mike started to say he was fine, but aborted when he saw that Mr. Clarke had that Look in his eyes, the one Mrs. Byers usually had, the one that meant he actually worked to know how Mike was doing.

“I’ve… been better.”

“I can imagine. How’s Will doing? I can’t imagine having to survive out in the woods that long all alone.”

“I – wh – yeah, right,” Mike covered, moving past the hint of a question on Mr. Clarke’s face. “He’s still in the hospital, still really weak. He’s sleeping a lot. I’ve been over there as much as I can. And Dustin and Lucas, of course. We’re gonna help him catch up on all his schoolwork.”

“Sure, sure,” agreed Mr. Clarke. “You and he can take as much time as you need, at least for my class. And I’m happy to meet with either of you if you have questions Dustin and Lucas can’t answer.”

“Yeah, thanks, Mr. Clarke.”

“And Mike?”

“Yeah?”

“If you ever want to talk about – anything, I’m happy to listen. I know this past week has been really tough for you, and I just wanted to let you know that I’m here.”

“Uh, yeah. Thanks. I’ve – I've gotta go to lunch now. But thank you. And thanks for answering all our questions last week.”

“You’re welcome,” Mr. Clarke called as Mike hurried out of the classroom. Mike didn’t like the feel of Mr. Clarke’s eyes on his back. It was nice of him – there was a reason Mr. Clarke was the best teacher – but obviously Mike couldn’t tell him anything of what had really happened.

“What was that about?” asked Lucas, lightly punching his shoulder, breaking him out of his reverie.

“He just – wanted to make sure I was okay with all the make-up work, since I’ve been missing so much school.”

“Gotcha, makes sense,” Dustin commented.

“Hey, Lucas, I need to borrow your bike. I’ll be back for Spanish.”

“What?” asked Lucas.

“You’re missing _lunch_?” If anything, Dustin managed to sound even more indignant.

“I’ll explain later,” Mike pleaded. “Please, Lucas? I won’t do anything dumb, I promise. I just need to – go into town for a few minutes.”

Lucas narrowed his eyes. “What do I get out of this?”

“Uhh, I dunno, what do you want?”

“Hmm… how about you spot me next time we’re at the arcade?”

“Ugh, fine,” Mike grumbled. He glanced down at his watch. “Shit. I gotta get going. See you later!”

“Mental,” muttered Dustin as Mike sprinted down the hall.

Fortunately, the middle school wasn’t too far from the center of town. Mike pedaled hard and he was significantly out of breath by the time he pulled up outside RadioShack. He took a few moments to recover, then dropped his bike on the ground and headed inside.

At first glance, there didn’t seem to be anyone in the store. Then his eyes drifted back to the service desk, and there he was. “Bob!”

“Hmm?” Bob muttered without looking up from his work.

“Bob! It’s me, Mike!”

Bob finally raised his head. “Ah, Mr. Wheeler! Good to see you again! How are those crystals working out for you?”

“They’re – they’re good. How do you remember that?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

“Not every day someone comes in here to buy crystals for a walkie-talkie they don’t own yet,” chuckled Bob, winking. “Besides, I heard all about that plan you boys came up with from your mothers.”

 _I knew it_ , thought Mike. _Mouth-breathers_.

“Shouldn’t you be in school, though?” Bob continued.

“I’m on lunch. And I actually had a question about the walkies,” Mike continued, remembering why he was there. “They work great for me and Lucas and Dustin, but Will lives too far away and it’s outside the range. Is there any way we could, I dunno, extend the range?”

“I mean, sure, there are a couple different ways we can do that. Where do you both live? And how’s Will doing, by the way? Terrible business, all that.”

“He’s – he’s getting better. I live up on Piney Wood, and Will lives down off Mirkwood, err, near Dearborn... by Hawkins Lab.” He grimaced.

“Sure, sure, that’s not too far, although certainly out of your standard range. What you’re going to need is some sort of radio repeater.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, imagine you had someone with a walkie on the same channel standing halfway between you and Will. He could receive what you were saying, then send it to Will, and vice versa. The radio repeater does that automatically for you.”

“That sounds perfect!” Mike was excited. It actually existed! “How much would it cost? And where would I put it?”

“Well, you’d probably want it in the middle of town for the best signal. And they’re usually pretty pricey –” Bob saw how Mike’s face fell – “But I think I just might be able to give something back to the community. I don’t think there’s anything up on the roof, so I could probably install one up there sometime this week…” He trailed off.

"But... but how much would it be?" asked Mike.

“For you? Nothing. I’m sure Will could use some friends in his life, and I’m happy to do this for him. What channel do you want it on, fourteen?”

“No, we switched to six, but, um…” Mike hesitated. “Maybe set it to channel five?”

“A private line, eh?” Bob had a twinkle in his eye. “Just come on down on Friday and we’ll make sure it’s good to go. Sound like a plan?”

“Yes! Thank you so much!” He glanced down at his watch. “Shit, I’m gonna be late for Spanish. See you Friday!” he yelled as he ran out the door.

* * *

Will couldn’t help but smile as Mike walked through the door. He would have smiled at the sight of his – best friend in normal times, of course, but Mike had on what Will had learned was his “secret smile”.

“Okay, spill it, Wheeler.”

Mike raised his eyebrows, then carefully schooled his face back to a neutral expression. “Spill, uh, what?”

Will rolled his eyes. “We both know you’re not fooling anyone.”

“I mean, uh,” Mike stalled as he walked over to the bed and laid a hand on Will’s shoulder. (If Will leaned into the touch, well, neither of them acknowledged it.) “Can I at least pretend it’s a secret that I have a secret and I promise I’ll tell you later? It’ll be better that way, I promise.”

“Ugh, fine,” Will sighed dramatically, turning up his nose. “I suppose I’ll just try not to _die_ of curiosity.”

“I mean, I can tell you now if you want. I just thought – I mean –”

Will stared, just short of shaking his head in fond exasperation. Mike was freaking out, wringing his hands. “Mike. Chill out. I was kidding. I didn’t lose my sense of humor in the Upside-Down.”

“Oh.” Mike abruptly sat down on the bed, kicking off his shoes. “Right, okay.”

“So how was school today?”

“Uh. Fine I guess. It was hard to concentrate honestly. I don’t remember that much. But –” he slung off his backpack and rooted around for a moment before retrieving a folder with a flourish – “I do have Dustin’s notes!”

Will pursed his lips, but accepted the proffered folder. He ran his thumb over the front, where Mike had scrawled “Will the Wise”, for a moment before opening it. He flipped lazily through the papers inside, a mix of handouts and worksheets and pieces of loose-leaf paper filled with Dustin’s slanting handwriting. “Multiplying fractions?” he groaned.

“Hey, it’s not really that bad. Do you wanna work together a bit? Dustin made me a folder too.”

“Yeah, sure, that’d be nice.”

Without asking, Mike nudged him over so they could both rest against the wall. The next half hour or so passed pleasantly enough as they worked through some of the math packets they’d missed. After a while, Will threw his folder down in frustration.

Mike glanced over at him, furrowing his eyebrows. He knew math wasn’t Will’s favorite subject, but he usually did fine at it.

“I just –” Will blushed under Mike’s scrutiny. “It’s – hard to concentrate on something as mundane as schoolwork right now.”

“Sure,” Mike agreed, snapping his own folder shut. “Wanna tell some more stories?”

Will took a deep breath in, then looked over at the earnest expression on Mike’s face. He let it out. “Yeah, okay.”

Mike slung an arm over his shoulder. “Alright, take it away!”

Will squirmed for a moment, trying to get comfortable, finally giving in and leaning his head back on Mike’s shoulder. “I don’t remember exactly what happened next. I know I slept for a while – under my bed, so it’d be harder for the Demogorgon to find me. It must have worked, because, well, I’m here, aren’t I? When I woke up, I was really hungry and thirsty, which was a problem, because, well –”

“Everything was rotten.”

“Exactly,” Will agreed. “I went to pour myself a glass of water, but this black sludge came out of the tap, and I thought about it, but I just couldn’t. So I thought about going into town, but I wanted to try calling Mom again first. I tried the Supercomm, but no answer, so I tried the house phone – just dialing my own number. And it – worked? Somehow? But the connection was even worse, and then the phone shocked me, so I went back to my room to grab the Supercomm and the gun, even though I was out of ammo. And I was in my own head, thinking about how much I wanted to get in touch with you and Mom and Jonathan – and Dustin and Lucas, of course. And then my stereo turned on? But it wasn’t on there, because electricity doesn’t seem to exist in the Upside-Down – but I guess it was on in my real room, and I could hear the echo somehow…”

“What was it playing?” asked Mike.

“Uh, it was a song by The Clash. I think I showed it to you once, but I dunno if you’d remember it…”

“Should I stay or should I go,” Mike half-sang, bobbing his head from side to side.

“How did you –!”

Mike smiled mysteriously. “Part of my story. I dunno if we’ll get there today or not, but it’s coming.”

Will glared. “Mikeeee,” he whined, “tell meee!” He started poking Mike in the side, but Mike just grabbed his wrists, immobilizing him.

“Uh-uh. Nope. Just gotta be patient,” he smiled. “So your stereo was playing your weird music,” he prompted.

“Hey!”

Mike shrugged. “I just call it like I see it, Byers.”

“Better than Michael Jackson,” Will muttered under his breath.

Mike gasped in mock indignation. “Byers, you wound me! Take it back!”

Will shook his head, the corners of his mouth tight.

Mike gave Will a good poke in the side before he let his wrists go. “So anyways…”

“Fine. So I was hearing this weird echo of some Great Music –” Mike nudged him playfully – “but I guess the Demogorgon heard it too. I hid under the bed, and the stereo turned off, and I guess it couldn’t find me, because it went away after a bit. Does it even have eyes?”

“I don’t think so… We didn’t see any. Just that mouth with all the teeth. Nancy thinks it hunts by smelling blood, like a shark.”

“But I wasn’t – I mean, when it got me…”

“Maybe you got a small cut when you fell off your bike?”

“I guess, maybe…” Will frowned. He thought he would have remembered that. “Anyways, I finally went into town. I found some bottled water at Bradley’s and it was… cloudy, but at least it wasn’t black sludge, so I drank a bunch of it and put some more in my bag for later.”

“And the food?”

Will wrinkled his nose. “Moldy. Rotten. Inedible. Even I had to plug my nose and I –”

“– have a terrible sense of smell, I know.” Will couldn’t quite read the expression on Mike’s face. His eyebrows were raised and his lips were slightly parted.

He blinked a few times. _Now is not the time to be thinking about Mike’s lips._ “Y-yeah,” he stammered. “And then when I left Bradley’s, I heard this screaming. I don’t know how to describe it, really, but I could somehow tell that it was coming from the Upside-Down – not an echo from the real world. It sounded more – real somehow?” Mike nodded. “So I ran towards them.”

“You did _what_?” Mike exploded. “Why wouldn’t you, I dunno, run in the other direction? Obviously the Demogorgon was causing the screaming!”

Will stared patiently at Mike. “We can’t just leave innocent people to get eaten by devil swine,” he muttered, smiling wryly.

Mike couldn’t help but smile back a little, but his face returned to his serious expression. “It’s not a game of D&D, though, Will… this was real life.”

“I know,” Will replied, willing his eyes to convey his intensity to Mike. “But if I didn’t help them, who would?”

Mike bowed his head in acknowledgment.

“It didn’t matter anyways. I got there too late. All I found were some cracked glasses. But I think she – it sounded like a girl – I think she knew Nancy. It almost sounded like –”

“Barb,” Mike breathed.

Will’s heart sank. “How – Is she – Oh, no.”

“She’s – gone. Eleven tried to find her, but couldn’t. She’s – the Demogorgon got her.”

“Oh, god,” breathed Will. He tried to wipe away his tears, but Mike beat him to it, letting his thumbs trail slowly across Will’s cheeks as he forced Will to look at him.

“It’s not your fault, Will. No, it’s _not_ ,” he repeated as Will tried to turn away. “It’s the Demogorgon’s fault, and Hawkins Labs’s fault. Not yours. Never yours. You survived, Will. I don’t know how, but you did and you’re the strongest person I know and –” And now Mike was crying too. He tried to collect himself for a moment before giving up and resting his forehead on Will’s shoulder.

They stayed in that position for a couple minutes until Mike sat up again. “My turn?” he asked, taking Will’s hands between his own, tangling and untangling their fingers.

Will nodded shallowly. “Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

“So I told you about our plan yesterday, how Eleven would go around and knock on our door in the morning and pretend to meet us for the first time. So I made her some Eggos and went down and explained the plan to her. But she said no.”

“Why?” asked Will. It sounded like a good plan.

“The Bad Men were after her, from the Lab. They have eyes and ears everywhere. If my mom made a phone call to anyone, they’d know. Benny had called child services, but _they_ came instead… and you see how that turned out.”

“Wait, what? What happened to Benny?”

“Oh, shit. I forgot you haven’t been around. He’s… he's dead, Will. They shot him when they were trying to capture Eleven.”

“Oh.” Will made a small noise in his throat and Mike squeezed his hands. Benny had always been really nice to him when they went out to the diner for brunch.

“Yeah, anyways, introducing her to my mom wasn’t exactly an option. So I biked to school like normal, but instead of actually going I turned around and went back home when Mom left to go shopping with Holly or whatever she does during the day. I radioed Dustin and Lucas to tell them to come to mine after school to figure out a new plan. So I showed El around the house and my room and all my toys like Yoda and Roarie and then I figured out you two were connected somehow.”

“What do you mean?” Will looked confused.

“She saw that picture on my bookcase from when we won the fifth grade science fair. She knew who you were. I assumed she had seen you in the woods, which I guess she kind of did? She didn’t exactly… use a lot of words. Anyways, my mom came back then, so we tried to get her back down to the basement ‘cause Mom only goes down there on laundry days. But we were too late, so I had to have this Talk with Mom.” He rolled his eyes. “I told her I was sick, so El and I were stuck being quiet in my room the rest of the day, ‘cause Mom couldn’t see me with a girl in my room.”

Will snorted.

“Anyways, Dustin and Lucas came over after school –”

“Where are they, anyways?”

“Huh?”

“Dustin and Lucas, do they have something going on today?”

“Oh, uh.” Mike scratched his neck. “They didn’t exactly tell their parents about coming over yesterday, and everyone’s on edge, ‘cause –” he gestured vaguely – “But they should be able to come over again soon. And now that you have your walkie, you can talk to them whenever, yeah?”

“Yeah, I guess,” mumbled Will. “It’s not the same, though.”

“Yeah, I know,” agreed Mike, returning to idly playing with Will’s fingers. “So like I was saying, Lucas and Dustin came over and Dustin was scared of the Bad Men like me, but Lucas didn’t care, so he went to go tell my mom –” Will furrowed his eyebrows – “but Eleven, she stopped him –” and raised them.

“With her magic powers?”

“More like the Force, really. Lucas went to open the door, and she shut it… with her mind.”

“No way.”

“Yes way. Twice. Then even Lucas saw sense, but we didn’t know what to do instead. We spent a while trying to come up with a plan, but they all had problems, mainly because Eleven kept insisting we couldn’t tell anyone. They stayed over for dinner – you know Dustin’s a sucker for my mom’s meatloaf – then we went downstairs to talk some more – she’d snuck down during dinner. Nancy went with Barb to some assembly at the school for you, so she was gone. Well, that was where she _said_ she was going. I guess she actually went to Steve’s instead, ‘cause that’s where it got Barb.”

Will shivered.

“Anyways, we were trying to get information out of her instead of going out to look for you again, ‘cause that seemed to be more efficient, y’know? She tried to explain it by flipping over the D&D board and putting your mini there along with the Demogorgon. Of course, we didn’t understand at the time, but it’s pretty clever now that we know where you were.”

“But we still don’t, not really.”

“I mean, yeah, I guess, but –” Mike frowned as Will suddenly withdrew his hands from his grasp. “What’s wr–” he started, and then he heard the door behind him.

“Michael,” Karen called.

“Ten minutes?” he pleaded. Will made his puppy dog eyes. “We’re working on homework!”

Karen raised her eyebrows at the discarded folders at the foot of the bed. “I can see that,” she muttered. “Ten minutes, no more.”

Will supposed they technically talked about social studies for the next ten minutes, but all he could concentrate on was how close Mike was, their thighs brushing, their elbows bumping, their shoulders rubbing, their hair tickling. He tried to put those thoughts out of his head – it’s not like Mike would ever… - but that proved easier said than done.


	5. Requiem

**Wednesday, November 16, 1983**

“Okay. What gives?”

Mike frowned at Dustin as they rode down the street. Lucas and he had just met Dustin at the end of his driveway, courtesy of his mom stopping by the junkyard on the way home from the hospital last night. “Good morning, Mike,” he mocked, “So good to see you and glad you got your bike back from the junkyard where Lucas and I so ungratefully left it.”

Dustin wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, all of that was assumed. Gotta keep our communication efficient, Mike!” he added, slapping his hand for emphasis and almost falling over as a result. Lucas and Mike chuckled at his misfortune. “Anyway, what gives, Mike?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean. What gives?” Mike rolled his eyes. “You take Lucas’s bike and ditch us at lunch yesterday. You disappear right after school. You don’t answer your radio all afternoon until it’s night and you’re about to go to bed and then it’s just to make sure we’re alive and not trapped in a parallel dimension or something.”

Lucas started frowning as Dustin went on, “Yeah, you’ve been off, man. What’s up?”

Mike sighed. “Okay, so, you know how when we’re at home, we can talk to each other on the Supercomms?”

“Yeah.”

“But Will, he’s too far away.”

“Yeah, it sucks.”

“Wait, hold on a second, wait up.” Dustin took a moment to collect his thoughts. “Do you mean you’ve found a solution?”

Mike flushed. “Um. Kind of?”

Dustin whooped and threw a fist in the air. “You’re a genius, Wheeler!”

“Don’t be thanking me just yet,” Mike muttered.

Dustin’s face fell.

“Did it not work?” asked Lucas.

“Or…” Dustin’s eyes started twinkling as he looked over at Lucas. Lucas rolled his eyes, although there was a hint of worry behind them.

“Just let me tell the story, guys!” Mike yelled.

“Sheesh,” Lucas murmured.

“Anyways. I went down to RadioShack at lunch yesterday to talk to Bob.”

“Bob?” asked Dustin.

“Bob… Newby, I think? He works there, or owns it, or something. I met him when Will and I first found the walkies last fall, and he’s always there when I’ve stopped by. He’s awesome. Anyways, I asked him if there was anything that could let me talk to Will.”

“And… Is there?” Lucas now.

“I… yeah. He’s gonna install a radio repeater on the roof this week.”

“Sweet!” crowed Dustin. “Now we can annoy Will all the time too!” Lucas cackled.

“Um. Yeah. About that…”

“What?” Dustin leaned closer in anticipation.

“I, um. The radio repeater’s gonna be on channel five,” Mike spit out in a single breath.

“Five?” asked Lucas in confusion. “Don’t you mean six? That’s what we got after Dustin fried his fourteen crystals, right?”

“Hey, that wasn’t my fault!”

“Yeah, yeah, if Mews had just stayed out of your room…”

“Exactly, thank you! But, Sir Michael, would you care to explain the choice of channel five?”

Mike flushed. “Um. Will and I have a private channel?”

Lucas threw up his hands as Dustin started laughing in glee. “Ha! I knew it! Pay up, Sinclair!”

Mike frowned. “What. Did you guys – ?”

“Yup,” Dustin grinned. “I’ve thought for a while that you guys must have some sort of private channel.”

“How?”

“Oh,” Dustin waved his hand airily. “Nothing for sure. Just isolated moments where you wouldn’t answer or Will knew something he shouldn’t. But last night really solidified it for me, so I bet my good man Lucas here that it existed, and the fool took me up on it.” He shrugged.

Mike shot Lucas a glance. “Haven’t you learned never to bet against Dustin on these kinds of things?”

Lucas made a face. “Son of a bitch is too intuitive for his own good.”

“For _your_ own good, Lucas,” Dustin corrected. “ _I’m_ now two whole dollars richer.”

Mike barked out a laugh as Lucas grimaced.

“Hey, wait,” Lucas countered. “Can we address the fact that you decided on your own that only you get to talk to Will?”

“Yeah,” added Dustin, looking a little hurt. “Why can’t we all talk to Will?”

“So… I thought about it.” Lucas raised an eyebrow. “And the time Will really needs a walkie is at night when it’s too late to call on the phone. And… Sometimes it’s easier to talk when you know only one person is listening?” He grimaced. He didn’t really want to get into Will’s dreams – that was Will’s choice whether or not to share. Lucas still looked confused, but Dustin nodded.

“Gotcha, makes sense.”

“And I can relay anything important to Will, y’know?” Mike added.

“Yeah, I guess.” Lucas’s mouth still had a bit of a twist to it, but it had softened.

“So do you guys have any other outstanding bets I should know about?”

Dustin and Lucas glanced at each other and said, “Nope!” at the same time, entirely too quickly for Mike’s liking. He sighed dramatically.

“Hey, it keeps life interesting, Mikey-Poo,” needled Dustin.

“God, I’m doing Will such a favor, keeping him away from the two of you.”

* * *

School that day was hard in different ways from yesterday. Dustin and Lucas being in on his plan – and just having a concrete plan in the first place – really helped a lot. He was able to concentrate on his surroundings better, and the work he’d done last night helped make the lessons make at least a little more sense.

But there kept being these – moments.

As he walked into school with Dustin and Lucas, he slowed down to let Will catch up, and even glanced behind him before he remembered that Will wasn’t there.

In math, as soon as Mrs. Gursky announced they’d continue working on multiplying fractions, Mike glanced over to watch Will groan and put his head in his hands, and even stretched out an arm to give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

In English, Mr. Mandeville split them up into groups of four to discuss the chapter they read last night and fill out a worksheet. They’d done this about once a week, so Mike automatically scooched his desk around to work with the rest for the Party. There was no one there to turn Will’s desk. They ended up working with some guy named Patrick. He had actually read the chapter, which was more than Mike could say.

And okay, art was hard, because every fucking thing in that room reminded Mike of Will. Some days when they didn’t have AV Club and they didn’t need to go home right away, Will would spend time here working on projects, because there were so many supplies that he didn’t have at home. Of course Mike hung out with him. He loved watching Will create. He had ample evidence of how good he was, but every project seemed to come out better than the last. He glanced at the shelf where Will’s clay pot-in-progress was left sitting all alone.

Science was a little better. Mr. Clarke had a slideshow for most of the class, but there was brief partner work at the end and Mike ended up working alone despite Lucas and Dustin offering to include him.

“Boys,” called Mr. Clarke as they traipsed out, “Do you want to have AV Club tomorrow, or…?”

Dustin and Lucas glanced at each other. Mike froze.

“I completely understand either way,” Mr. Clarke continued as it became obvious that none of the boys were going to answer.

“I – we – We should wait for Will,” Mike stammered, glancing back at Dustin and Lucas for confirmation. Dustin shrugged and Lucas nodded. “We’re gonna go over to the hospital right after school tomorrow,” he explained.

“Right, of course. Well, I’ll see you in class tomorrow then, boys.”

In the lunch line, Mike stepped to the side after he paid for his food to wait for Will to come through. He kept standing there stupidly as some girl he didn’t know paid for her lunch. He zoned out at table as Dustin and Lucas argued over the merits of pennies (as far as he could tell, Lucas was for and Dustin was against, which checked out).

“Mike… Mike… Earth to Mike!” Lucas called, waving his hand in front of Mike’s face as he vaguely held an apple near his mouth.

“Huh?” he asked, shaking his head to clear his mind.

“What’s up with you?” asked Lucas. “You’ve been out of it all day.”

“It’s Will, isn’t it?” asked Dustin.

Mike swallowed, then jerkily nodded. “I – yeah.” He looked down at the table. “I know it’s dumb, but I get worried that if I can’t see him he might just disappear again.”

“Hey,” said Dustin, laying a hand on his shoulder. “I get it, man.”

“Yeah,” agreed Lucas, reaching over Dustin, “He’ll be back soon enough, though. And you’re going over after school again today, right?”

“Yeah,” sighed Mike, “but that’s still like two hours away.” Dustin and Lucas shared a glance as Mike sighed. Dustin raised an eyebrow and Lucas minutely shook his head.

Dustin shrugged as he turned back to Mike. “So, Michael of Clan Wheeler, where do you stand on the penny?”

Mike let himself be distracted for the rest of lunch, but he still automatically reached out a hand to help guide Will through the crush of students as they left the cafeteria.

Spanish was the only class where the Party split up. Dustin had signed up for French without consulting anyone else (“It’s the language of love! The chicks are gonna be all over me!”) and Nancy and Jonathan both swore that Spanish was easier, so Lucas took French just to keep Dustin company (and definitely not to up his game… he didn’t need French to woo the ladies). Mike supposed he should take notes for Will, since Dustin was no help here. It felt good to be doing something, but it wasn’t the same as being able to glance over at Will whenever the teacher said something funny, intentionally or not.

By history, he’d lost his focus. He saw that Dustin was taking notes like a pro and allowed himself to zone out, thinking about what he had to talk to Will about this afternoon. He shuddered. _Better now than later? Maybe?_

* * *

“Look what I got, Byers!” Mike yelled as he entered Will’s hospital room, holding the folder of schoolwork in his hands. He paused as soon as he laid eyes on Will, though. “What the f–”

“Hey, Mike,” Will replied, cutting him off. “I’m fine.”

“But then what’s all that?” asked Mike, gesturing vaguely at the wires attached to Will’s head and the machine spitting out paper on the side like a seismograph.

“At least get up here and keep me company,” sighed Will. Mike didn’t need a second invitation, kicking off his shoes then lying on his stomach, chin in his hands, so he could look up at Will’s face.

Will rolled his eyes. “It’s nothing, Mike – really,” he added as Mike continued to look skeptical. “Look, I’m gonna tell you what it’s about. I just – everyone treats me like I’m fragile an I’m about to break or go missing again. I just – I need you to trust me.”

Mike reached out a hand to hold Will’s and let himself be pulled up so he was sitting crisscross, still facing Will. He held Will’s gaze, forcing himself not to look away, even though he could feel his face flushing. “I do,” he breathed, trying to convey how much he meant that with his eyes. Will held his gaze for a moment, then his eyes flickered down and back up again as he flushed too. Usually these conversations happened at sleepovers after the lights went out. Being able to see each other was nearly too much intimacy, but Mike _needed_ Will to know this with every fiber of his being. “I trust you so fucking much, Will –” Will’s eyes widened at the curse – “and –” he squeezed Will’s hand as he bit his lower lip. Mike sighed. “I just, I wanna protect you because you’re my best friend, and I worry that I’m gonna lose you again, because I couldn’t – I couldn’t handle that, but you’re the bravest person I know and I trust you and I’ll still ask if you’re okay, but if you say you are, I’ll believe you and –”

“Mike,” whispered Will, “You’re rambling.”

“I’m sorry, I just –”

“Shh,” continued Will, putting a finger over Mike’s lips. Mike froze immediately. “I just – I need one person in my corner, y’know? You know how my mom is. She’s awesome, but she’s just too much sometimes. I’ve told her bits and pieces, but if she knew everything, she’d freak. More than she already is.” The corners of his mouth turned up. “And Jonathan blames himself too much and babies me too. I just need you to – can you – ?” Will broke off, asking Mike for – something he couldn’t quite put into words.

“Yes,” agreed Mike immediately. “Always.”

“Okay.” Will let out his breath and chuckled nervously. “Thanks. Now that that’s over with, what were you trying to give me?”

“Oh, yeah!” Mike brightened, but carefully avoided looking into Will’s eyes. “More schoolwork!”

“No, no, get it away!” squealed Will playfully, pushing it away.

“Can it, Byers. We both know you’re the studious one here. I bet you got all the work from last week done already, didn’t you?”

“Most of it,” Will muttered sheepishly as Mike grinned in triumph. “I’m gonna need some help on the math still.”

“Yeah, sure, I gotcha. I actually paid attention in class, and it’s pretty easy once you understand what’s going on. Do you wanna do that now?”

“Urgh. Not really. Stories?” asked Will.

Mike cocked his head. “Yeah, sure. Didn’t realize you were that scared of fractions.”

Will grunted and punched Mike in the arm. “’M not,” he muttered as Mike laughed.

“You wanna start with all that machinery? What, are they measuring earthquakes in your brain or something?”

“Oh, yeah.” Will’s face darkened. “So I guess scientists from Hawkins Lab have been pushing to get me transferred there for a few days so they could see what effects the Upside-Down had on me.”

“What?” spluttered Mike. “They can’t –”

“Yeah, trust me, Mom was very clear on that point. So they compromised and let them come here. They’re gonna monitor me for twenty-four hours to see if it messed up my brain, I guess. They asked me to do a bunch of weird things too.”

“Like what?”

“Like move things with my mind, or light things on fire, or create illusions, or read people’s minds. It’s like they thought I got superpowers or something.”

“Like El,” breathed Mike, and Will frowned. “So. Did you?”

Will chuckled. “No, Mike. Sorry to burst your bubble. I couldn’t do any of the things they asked me to do. I doubt they got good data anyways. The hospital’s been having some electrical issues. The lights kept flickering, and the power even went out for a couple minutes, so they got some records of me having a panic attack – no, don’t,” he cut Mike off – “I’m fine.”

Mike nodded in acknowledgment. “Well, sorry you didn’t get any superpowers,” he said instead. “There’s still time, right?”

“God, I hope not,” shuddered Will. “But, yeah. That’s what all this is. They said everything looked normal – it’s just a precaution. So where did I leave off yesterday?”

“Uh, you were talking about your radio turning on on its own?”

“Right, right. So I slept for a bit – under the bed again – ‘cause Demogorgon, plus the sheets were like moldy and stuff.” He wrinkled his nose. “When I woke up again, I heard my mom’s voice. She – knew I was there somehow? She kept asking where I was and how to find me, and I kept seeing these bright flashes of light as I moved around the room, but I couldn’t figure out how to actually reply. I guess voices only go one way between dimensions.” He sighed as Mike played with his fingers. “But then Jonathan came in and took Mom away – I think he thought she was crazy which, I mean, I would have too, talking to an empty room.”

“I knew she was right,” whispered Mike.

“I know.” Will smiled as he squeezed Mike’s hand back. “I went back to Bradley’s to get some more water. I still hadn’t eaten, but drinking water helped keep the hunger at bay, at least a little bit. When I got back, it looked like the Demogorgon had been back – more scratches on the walls and things like that. But then I remembered this little cabinet in the wall behind some shelves.”

“Oh, yeah! I remember that from when we were little and played hide-and-seek all the time.”

“Yeah, turns out I still fit.” Will grimaced. "So I hung out in there for a bit, and then I hear Mom again!”

“How did she keep finding you?” asked Mike.

“I dunno. Oh, I kept seeing lights flickering around the living room, I dunno if that had anything to do with it.”

“The Christmas lights!” exclaimed Mike.

“Huh?”

“Oh, well, they’re probably still up, so you can see when you get out, but your Mom bought a whole buttload of Christmas lights and hung them up, like, everywhere. Maybe like the radio, you were somehow lighting them up in the real world?”

“Yeah, I guess…” Will furrowed his brow, trying to make sense of it. “But I don’t know how, ‘cause I couldn’t see them in the Upside-Down. Anyways, she sounded close, like she was sitting in the cabinet with me – maybe she was, in the real world. She told me to blink once for yes, twice for no –”

“Like Paul Revere!”

Will narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, I guess? But anyways, she seemed to be able to see my blinking, and I told her I was here and alive, but that I wasn’t safe, and then she started asking questions that weren’t yes and no, and I couldn’t answer, so then –”

“ _That’s_ what the alphabet was for!” yelled Mike. “I get it now.”

“Yeah.” Will smiled thinly. “Did she really paint it on the wall in our actual house?”

“Yep,” grinned Mike. “Between that and the Christmas lights, everyone thought she was crazy, but she was the only one who knew you were really still out there.”

“And you,” Will whispered.

“Yeah,” Mike replied equitably. “And me.”

“So she asked where I was and I said ‘Right here’, ‘cause I didn’t know what else to say, but obviously that didn’t do any good. Then she asked what to do and then – then I heard it again, right outside. I told her to run, and then I got out of there. It was –” his breathing quickened as Mike scooted closer – “It was on the porch, peering in through the wall.”

“The window?”

“No, the wall. It had made a portal between worlds. It wasn’t going after me. It was going after Mom. I couldn’t let it get her. So I threw a book at it and ran for it.”

“Where did you go?”

“Just down the road for a while… I didn’t exactly have a plan,” Will admitted. “My legs gave out around the middle of town, so I hid in Melvald’s for a bit and I think I lost it. I actually made it over to your place, but that was almost worse, seeing the basement all rotted and empty and – not how it should be. I thought it would feel safer being there, in your house, but… it didn’t. It felt worse. And then as I was leaving, I heard the news on the TV, I guess, and it said I was dead? And that really messed me up, because I wasn’t dead and I knew Mom knew I wasn’t dead and –” he started hyperventilating as Mike gathered him up in his arms.

“It’s okay,” Mike whispered as he thread his fingers through Will’s hair. “You’re here.”

“I know,” sobbed Will, “but I was so scared, Mike, you don’t understand. I ran back home and told my mom I wasn’t dead, but I guess she wasn’t there, ‘cause she didn’t answer? So I just –” He paused, breathing in Mike’s scent to calm his breathing. “I tried the radio and the Supercomm again but nothing worked, so I just sang myself to sleep.”

Mike quirked an eyebrow. “Was it that Clash song?”

“Yeah, yeah, how’d you know?”

“El found you on the radio!”

“Then why didn’t you –”

“I tried. Obviously. But I couldn’t talk back, and then El lost the connection.”

“Yeah…” Will trailed off, hugging himself. “Your turn?” he asked in a small voice from somewhere around Mike’s chest.

“Um.” Mike tensed up, then steeled himself. “Yeah. Yeah. Just – Wednesday – wasn’t a good day. I might need some time this time.”

Will pulled back and looked up, catching Mike’s gaze. “Take all the time you need,” he said seriously.

Mike flashed him a smile. “Thanks. I know that I didn’t go through anything like –”

Will shook his head. “I went through what I went through; you went through what you went through. And we’re gonna talk about them and deal with them, because that’s what best friends do, right?”

“I – yeah. I guess. Thanks, Will.” He flushed. “So Dustin and Lucas came over in the morning, ‘cause our parents didn’t want us riding alone to school with the disappearances and everything.”

“Huh?” asked Will. “But don’t the three of you ride to school together anyways?”

“Yeah, and that just meant that Dustin had to ride longer by himself. I tried to explain because it made literally zero sense, but… parents.” He shrugged. “It was fine. Better, actually. We told our parents we had AV Club after school, so we’d have more time to look for you, and Lucas and Dustin brought some supplies over.”

“Supplies?”

“Well, Lucas brought actual supplies – binoculars, a knife, his wrist rocket –” Will rolled his eyes – “but Dustin just brought snacks.”

“Of course he did,” Will snorted and Mike couldn’t help but smile. “Wait, so El was still there too?”

“Yeah, she slept in the basement again.”

“But how had your mom – ?”

“I told you, she _never_ goes down there anymore, except laundry days. It’s kind of awesome. But, yeah. She was there too, although obviously she didn’t bring any supplies. Just her powers. Dustin tried to get her to make the Millennium Falcon fly, but she wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno. Maybe she didn’t understand, or didn’t want to. At the time, I thought maybe she couldn’t – at the time we’d only seen her close a door with her mind, although clearly if she could flip a van, then…”

“Yeah.” Will chuckled.

“So, anyways, we had to go to school so our moms wouldn’t get suspicious. I don’t know what was worse – being in school Monday, when we weren’t sure where you were, or Wednesday, when we knew you were missing. The teachers gave us some leeway. I definitely read comic books all through social studies.”

“Nuh-uh!” Will shook his head, looking scandalized.

“Yuh-huh!” Mike was smart, sure, but he’d never been nearly as studious as Will.

“Ms. Grier didn’t care?”

“I don’t think she noticed, honestly. We sit further back than usual, y’know.”

“Yeah,” Will agreed.

“Oh, and at recess we looked for rocks for the wrist rocket!”

“What, you’re gonna take out the Demogorgon with a slingshot?”

“That’s what I said!” Mike burst out.

“Someone gonna tell Lucas they didn’t use slingshots in ‘Nam either?”

Mike rolled his eyes. “But the binoculars and knife he brought were from ‘Nam. He’ll get over it eventually. Oh, and Troy and James showed up…” He trailed off, unconsciously rubbing his chin.

“Did they hurt you?” Will asked, suddenly alert, scanning Mike for any injuries.

Mike chuckled. It was a week ago, dude. They tripped me and I got a cut on my chin, but you can barely even see it anymore.”

But of course Will cupped Mike’s chin in his hand, tracing over it with his thumb until he found the scar, and – okay, this was weird and, oh God, Will’s face was right there and Mike unconsciously scooched back on the bed. He thought he saw a look flicker across Will’s face, but it was gone in the next moment, and so was Will’s hand.

“I see,” was all he said.

“Uh, y – yeah. Yeah,” Mike stammered. “But they were just saying dumb things like always.”

Will’s eyes narrowed. “Like what?”

“I – nothing important.”

Will narrowed his eyes.

Mike glanced down. Will didn’t need to hear the same insults he got every day secondhand through Mike. “Just like – that you were probably dead.”

Will grimaced and put a hand on Mike’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Mike. That must have been really hard.” Mike couldn’t help but stare into Will’s eyes. He was worried how _Mike_ reacted to the terrible things they were saying about _him_? How was Will always so selfless and perfect? And they’d always been touchy-feely with each other, way more than guys normally would be (at least in private), but why was he _noticing_ it so much more now? His eyes flicked down and back up to Will’s eyes.

“Yeah, it was. But the rock that I cut my chin on was perfect for the wrist rocket!” he laughed, diffusing the tension. Will leaned back a bit and Mike relaxed, shifting his position so that Will could rest his head on his chest.

“So what happened next?” Will murmured as he settled into position.

“Well, the three of us met up with El after school and walked around for a while. She said she was gonna help us find you, but I don’t think she quite knew where she was going because we kept going in circles. And Lucas was acting all butthurt, so that made things weird too.”

“What about?”

Mike made a face. “I dunno. Dustin thought he was jealous of how much attention I was paying to El, but that doesn’t make any sense because I pay even more attention to you when we hung out. Maybe he wanted to spend more time with her? Or maybe he still wanted to get adults involved. I dunno. Lucas just gets in those moods sometimes, y’know?”

Will nodded. Lucas would never tell anyone what was going on – he’d just be surly and standoffish for a few days and then snap out of it like nothing had happened.

“And then after, like, hours of walking through the woods, we somehow pop out at your house, which I guess makes sense, ‘cause that’s where you were in the Upside-Down. But at the time, we were angry, ‘cause _obviously_ you weren’t just hiding at home and it seemed like El was just wasting our time. And then we saw the cop cars and ambulances go by. There were, like, a _lot_. So we followed them and we ended up at the quarry.” Mike’s voice cracked and he paused.

“Hey,” whispered Will. “You don’t have to do this.” He sat up. Mike gave him a confused look, but he pulled Mike’s head down to his own chest and started playing with _Mike’s_ hair, and Mike knew that Will liked it when he did that, but he’d never really understood _why_ until right then. It took away the intensity of having to look at Will, but he still felt so connected to him. He knew that Will was paying attention to him and cared about him, but it wasn’t overwhelming. It was just – safe.

He took a couple deep breaths before he actually began. “We pulled up behind a fire truck, so the cops wouldn’t see us. There were cops pulling something out of the lake. It was a body. It was your body. And I –” He squeezed his eyes shut and curled in on himself. Will dropped his chin to rest on Mike’s head and clasped his hands on Mike’s chest. Mike grabbed onto them for dear life. “I broke,” he whispered through his tears.

Usually he tried to avoid crying in front of anyone else, ‘cause guys didn’t do that. But he and Will had cried too often in front of each other (especially this week) for him to care. He hyperventilated and felt the tears stream down his face and let Will’s hands rubbing across his chest and encouragements murmured in his ear ground him. “Breathe with me,” Will whispered, “I’m right here, Mike. I’m gonna take a deep breath in, okay?” And because he was on Will’s chest, Mike could _feel_ the breaths, and after a few he was able to sync his up, although there were still a few hiccups. He reached up to wipe his eyes, but Will beat him to it, and he’d never felt such gentle hands in his life and –

“I broke,” whispered Mike again. “Half of me didn’t believe it at all. And then the other half of me couldn’t process it. I don’t even really remember what happened. I think I yelled at El and I must have biked home, ‘cause the next thing I really remember is crying when Mom hugged me and then I hid out in the basement – just, thinking about you. Will, I don’t –” He started breathing faster again – too fast, but Will rubbing circles on his chest helped him calm back down. “I can’t do this without you,” he whispered.

“Do what?” asked Will.

Mike gestured vaguely. “I dunno. Life. Anything. I barely remember anything before I met you. A couple things from daycare, I guess. But like. I sat on the couch in the basement and looked through some of the drawings you made me and thought about how I’d never get another one. How I’d never get to look over and see you smile again, hear your voice call me out for doing something dumb, or your laugh when I said something funny. No one to read comic books to, or listen to music with, or –” He felt something drip on his forehead, and when he looked up, Will was crying too. “I can’t lose you, Will,” he sobbed, and he turned over, burying his face in the crook of Will’s neck and holding Will as tight as he could and feeling Will’s arms around him just as tight. They just lay like that for a time in silence, breathing together, just – being. Together.

“Y’know,” whispered Will after a few minutes, “I couldn’t lose you either. When I was – there, I thought about Mom and Jonathan, obviously, but I thought a lot about you.”

“And Dustin and Lucas,” Mike added.

“I mean… a bit, but – obviously I love them to death, but – not in the same way. It’s you, Mike. It’s always been you. Nothing makes sense without you. I knew you wouldn’t give up on me, that you’d find a way to bring me back. That’s all that kept me going, towards the end. I wonder… I wonder sometimes if we fit together so well because we’ve known each other since forever and grew into each other, or whether we would’ve been best friends no matter when we met.”

“I don’t really care,” Mike mumbled into Will’s neck, and Will shouldn’t find it that precious when Mike’s voice keeps cracking, but for some reason he does. “It doesn’t matter, ‘cause we have each other. But my money’s on the latter,” he added after a pause, “ ‘cause you’re too awesome and I know we would have found each other somehow.”

And of course then they were both crying again and holding on and reminding themselves that this was _real_ , and no one was disappearing, ever again.

Needless to say, no homework had gotten done by the time Joyce showed up, reminding Mike that he needed to get home for dinner. “Is everything okay, boys?” she asked quietly.

There was a pause, and then Mike answered. “It is now.”

And if Will could smile every day like he did just then, Joyce knew she could die happy.


	6. Communication

**Thursday, November 17, 1983**

Will heard the pounding of feet down the hallway well before Mike flung open the door, Dustin and Lucas trailing him. Lucas was always light on his feet, and Mike could be when he bothered to think about it and wasn’t tripping over himself. Dustin – had a lot of other positive qualities. _Right_ , he thought to himself. _It’s Thursday_. Mike had mentioned that last night, during their nightly post-homework radio chat, that Dustin and Lucas were free to come over tomorrow, if that was okay with him? Will had snorted and rolled his eyes, because of course he wanted to see them. He reminded himself that it was purely his imagination that Mike sounded a little disappointed it wouldn’t be just the two of them.

But now they were here and Will felt a grin spreading across his face. “Guys!” he cried out, sitting up. “It’s so good to see you again!” Mike hugged him first, like always, then Dustin caught him in a deep bear hug, then he and Lucas clapped each other on the back a few times, like Lucas swore all the cool kids did. “Uh, pull up some chairs I guess?” he said once they all stood back. It’s not like they could all fit on the bed.

Lucas and Dustin did, in fact, pull up some chairs while Mike shed his backpack, coat, and shoes and hopped up on the bed. Will raised his eyebrows, Dustin tilted his head, and Lucas frowned, but Mike ignored all of them. He settled in next to Will, re-positioning him so that his head rested on Mike’s shoulder. Once he was satisfied, he turned back to Dustin and Lucas and finally took in their expressions. He wrinkled his nose. “Kindergarten,” he said, like it should have been obvious, and shrugged.

“No fair!” yelled Dustin.

“I only met you a year later!” spluttered Lucas.

Will just smiled, tugging Mike’s arm tighter around his shoulders.

“I don’t make the rules,” Mike replied cheekily. “I just enforce them.”

After some more good-natured grumbling, Will finally managed to get a word in edgewise. “So did anything interesting happen in school today?”

“Oh man,” Dustin started, “we were talking about Roman culture today in social studies today and –”

He flinched as Lucas punched him in the arm. “He said _interesting_ , dipshit.”

“Ancient Rome is –”

“No, it’s not. And no, Will, it was just a normal day.”

“Well…” Mike’s face scrunched up. Dustin glanced at him quizzically, but Lucas caught on.

“Oh, yeah. At lunch today, a certain Jennifer Hayes asked how you were doing and when you’d be back in class…”

“Oh, tell Jenny I miss her!” Jenny was one of the few people outside the Party who actually deigned to talk to him. She was really good at art too, and even though they’d never hung out outside of school, he thought of her as a friend.

“Will do,” said Lucas slyly, winking at Will. Will made a face, both at Lucas and at Mike suddenly pulling him even closer.

“Oh my god, it’s not like that!”

“Sure, it’s not,” teased Dustin. “Looks like _someone’s_ jealous,” he added, turning to Mike.

“’M not jealous,” Mike muttered derisively. “’M not.”

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

“Screw you, Dustin,” Mike replied, flipping him off without any malice.

Will shifted slightly and coughed, trying to regain attention.

Mike glanced down. “You okay?” he whispered.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he whispered back. “Just trying to get those two numbskulls over there to shut up.”

“Numbskull? You know Lucas hates it when you call him that,” called Dustin, tuning in.

“You too, idiot,” clarified Will as Lucas punched Dustin again.

“Ow,” complained Dustin, rubbing his arm. “At least pick a different spot next time!”

“So!” interjected Mike before they could get going again, “I’ve been filling Dustin and Lucas in on some of what you’ve been telling me – just the broad strokes, not the boring details,” he clarified as Will’s hands tightened convulsively around his own. He rubbed up and down Will’s arm to assure him that his secrets were safe.

“Yeah, it’s crazy there’s this whole parallel dimension!” Dustin had successfully latched onto the new topic. “Do you think it’s like, superimposed on ours, like you could shift between them if you could move in, like, seven dimensions? Or are they separated, so you need a wormhole or something to travel back and forth?”

Will raised his hands in bewilderment. “How am I supposed to know, Dustin? I mean, I definitely saw portals between the worlds, but I feel like there were times the Demogorgon just appeared, so maybe it can phase shift?”

“What are the portals like? How do they get created?”

“Uh, I know the Demogorgon uses them when it’s hunting, but I don’t really know beyond that. I don’t know if it makes them or just uses them, and like, I don’t remember a portal when I first went to the Upside-Down?”

Mike could feel Will tensing up as he went on, so he spoke up. “And El made the first portal, right? The gate in the Lab?”

“Right, right…” Dustin trailed off.

“Um,” Will offered when it became clear that Dustin wasn’t going to continue. “I – I do remember a time there was a portal without the Demogorgon, though.

“So I was just hanging out at home – this is right after we stopped talking yesterday, Mike – well, as much as you can ever hang out there, I guess.” Will snorted. It was a lot easier to get into it with Dustin and Lucas there, without feeling the weight of Mike’s undivided attention. “Anyways, I heard my radio turn on again – that same Clash song – oh, come on, guys,” he complained as all three of them rolled their eyes.

“Don’t you ever listen to anything else?” asked Lucas.

“I listen to plenty of other things,” Will defended himself. “I just sometimes get obsessed with a particular song. Remember _Dancing Queen_?”

Mike started humming as Lucas groaned and Dustin just looked confused. “Just be glad you missed it,” Lucas said, head in his hands. “Trust me.”

Will chuckled. “ _Anyways_ , I hadn’t turned it on. I wasn’t even in the room. It must have been my mom. But I couldn’t talk back to her, so I wandered around, and out on the porch, I saw a portal in the wall, the same place it tried to attack Mom yesterday. But it – wasn’t there. So I tried to see if I could get through.”

“But you couldn’t?”

“Obviously not, Dustin,” Mike snapped, leaning forward. Will squeezed his hand and he sat back, a little.

“It looked squishy, but it felt like – hard plastic. Like looking through a windshield that’s also a giant cell, if it were tinted red. I could kinda see into the living room, but I guess Mom couldn’t see me, so I started banging and calling for her. After a minute or so, I could see Mom – I think she ripped off the wallpaper? And we were able to talk for a bit, and she saw me, and then –”

Dustin’s and Lucas’s eyes had been slowly widening until Dustin couldn’t take the silence anymore. “It came!”

“It’s like home,” intoned Mike, “but it’s so dark. It’s so dark and empty. And it’s cold.”

Will turned to him, shocked. “I – How – El?”

“El,” nodded Lucas solemnly.

“How often could you hear me?” spluttered Will.

“Hardly ever,” Mike reassured him. “That was the longest stretch we heard, ‘cause El was on the Heathkit, and then –”

“Boom,” said Dustin softly, miming an explosion with his hands.

“Huh?”

Dustin repeated the gesture.

“Oh,” Will replied, with dawning understanding.

“Yeah,” confirmed Lucas, sadly.

“So where did you run to?” asked Mike.

“Just – away,” shuddered Will. “I ended up in the graveyard off of Jefferson.”

“A _graveyard_?” Dustin sounded offended. “That’s, like, the last place I would go!”

“Well, it’s not like I meant to.” Will rolled his eyes. “I just kinda ended up there. And –” He hesitated. Mike brushed their hands together and Will took a shuddering breath. “I dunno, I was probably hallucinating, ‘cause I hadn’t eaten anything –” Dustin looked scandalized – “but, I thought I heard voices? From, like, the graves?”

“What were they saying?” asked Lucas, leaning forward.

“Were they more like zombies or ghosts?” asked Dustin.

Mike felt more than saw Will scrunch his eyes shut and shake his head. “Okay, guys,” he said loudly. “It’s our turn now. The last thing I talked about was, uh, the quarry.”

“Which time?” asked Dustin.

“Which –” started Lucas, but Mike shot him a glance.

“First time,” he answered Dustin. _Shit. How am I gonna explain_ that _to Will._

“Yeah, so this asshole takes off right after they pulled dummy Will from the quarry, leaving Lucas and me alone with El,” complained Dustin, jerking a thumb at Mike.

“Yeah, not cool, man,” muttered Lucas. “I know you were out of it, but we’re Will’s friends too, y’know?” He swiped away the beginning of a tear.

“Yeah, I know,” Mike muttered. “Sorry,” he added as Will elbowed him

“And neither of us could keep El at our house, so we dumped her back at Mike’s place,” explained Lucas.

“Yeah, thanks for that,” shot back Mike.

“What?” asked Dustin. “You were just moping around, looking through some old drawings.”

“Hmm?” asked Will.

“I’ll tell you later,” Mike whispered back, then turned to Dustin. “Yeah, well, then I was just moping around, looking through old drawings while El kept messing with my walkie and being a pain in the ass.”

Dustin shrugged and Mike backed down.

“But she was able to tune in to Will, so I guess it all worked out,” Mike admitted. Will turned his head up to Mike. “Your Clash song,” Mike smiled. “Anyways, I was still too mad and sad and scared to talk to anyone, so I just went to bed, but at least I knew you were alive, even if no one else did.” He glared at the other two.

Lucas shrugged, unapologetic. “What else was I supposed to think? Anyways. Obviously our parents let us stay home from school the next day.”

“My mom almost made me go on errands with her,” Mike grimaced, “But I convinced her I’d be fine on my own. So as soon as she left, I called Lucas and told him and Dustin to get their asses over to my place.”

“You could have at least explained why,” cut in Dustin.

“You wouldn’t have believed me.” Mike rolled his eyes.

“I would have if –”

“Guys,” said Will softly. All eyes turned to him. He shifted, a little uncomfortable with all the attention. “Uh, could we stick to the story and cut down on the fighting?”

Dustin at least had the decency to look ashamed. Mike still had a fierce expression on.

“So Dustin and I finally get over to Mike’s basement, and El picks up, like, whimpering or something on the Supercomm. I thought it was just the Blackburns’ baby monitor –”

“But I thought it sounded like when you crashed your bike in fifth grade.”

Will flinched and flexed his right hand. That hadn’t been a fun couple months.

“And all _I_ was trying to get through their skulls was that you were alive. But we needed a better radio, like –”

“The Heathkit,” breathed Will.

“Exactly,” said Mike fondly.

“But how did you get her into the AV room without anyone noticing?”

“Well, we’re not all ninjas like me –” everyone rolled their eyes at Lucas –

“So we dressed her up!” explained Dustin. “Lukey and I looked through some of Nancy’s old clothes and costumes and shit. We found her a dress and a blonde wig.”

“And Mike did her make-up,” snickered Lucas.

“You can – ?”

Mike shook his head dismissively. “Nancy taught me. It was a long time ago,” he muttered.

Will hummed to himself as he imagined Mike in make-up. He’d have to bother Mike for more details later.

“And then he said she looked pretty!” Lucas winked.

“Good!” Mike clarified, flustered. “Pretty – good. Disguise, y’know? Like, she actually looked like a girl.”

“Uh, yeah,” murmured Will, casting his eyes down to the bed.

Lucas waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“So, we made it to the AV room undetected,” continued Dustin, “but it was locked.”

“Couldn’t El – ?”

“Probably,” cut in Lucas, “But Mr. Clarke showed up before she could try.”

“Oh, shoot.”

“Yeah, but don’t worry,” said Dustin, “I used my awesome acting skills so he didn’t even suspect a thing.”

Even Will had to raise his eyebrows at that one. Dustin _was_ in drama club, but…

“He didn’t!” Dustin protested. “At least I didn’t say I was upset while I was fucking _smiling_!” He held up an arm to successfully block Lucas’s smack.

“Anyways,” said Mike, “As far as Mr. Clarke’s concerned, she’s my second cousin Eleanor from Sweden who was in town for your funeral.”

“Uh?”

“We were improvising, okay?”

Will chuckled.

“So there was some assembly in the gym for you,” continued Lucas, “ ’cause you were dead.”

Will flinched, and Mike bundled him closer. “What – what did – ?”

“Nothing important,” murmured Mike. “Just dumb adult stuff to make themselves feel better. Oh, but Troy and James kept talking and being total mouth breathers.”

Lucas’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, so after the assembly, my man Mike goes up and confronts them.”

“You – you stood up to Troy?”

“Yeah, I guess I did.” Mike gave a funny little half-smile.

“You shoulda seen it, man!” Dustin had a habit a habit of talking with his hands, forcing Lucas to duck out of the way. “He shoved Troy down on the gym floor!”

Will’s eyes widened as he turned to Mike. “You did? But how did you get away with it?”

“El,” explained Mike, and Will’s expression only dimmed a small fraction.

“She froze him right before he was about to clock Mike,” explained Lucas. “And then he _peed_ himself!”

Will couldn’t help bursting out laughing, and everyone else joined in. “Darn,” he said once he’d calmed down. “Wish I’d been there to see that!”

“It was _legendary_ , man,” confirmed Lucas.

“So did you finally get to go to the AV room?”

“Yeah, Mr. Clarke had given us the key –”

“Given _me_ the key,” corrected Mike grinning.

“Well, that was obviously a mistake,” muttered Will.

“Byers!” exclaimed Mike as Dustin leaned over to give him a high-five. “You wound me!” Will just burrowed deeper in response. “Anyways, _I_ unlocked the AV room,” continued Mike, “And we got El set up with the Heathkit. At first nothing happened, but then the lights went out, and we heard banging, and – you talking to your mom.”

“It’s like home,” Dustin repeated, “but it’s so dark. It’s so dark and empty. And it’s cold.”

Will shuddered.

“Then El blew up the radio,” explained Lucas.

“Or maybe… maybe it was the Demogorgon?” suggested Will. “It interrupted the other – electronic connections I made with Mom.”

“Hmm, interesting…” Dustin trailed off.

“Dustin put out the fire,” Mike offered.

Dustin grinned, returning to reality. “All that Scout training went to good use!”

Lucas frowned. “You didn’t even finish Cub Scouts!” he burst out.

“So? It’s more than –”

“Guys,” Mike said sharply, shutting them up.

“So what happened next?”

“Well, we left with the fire alarm,” explained Mike, “and just biked home, ‘cause we weren’t even supposed to be there in the first place.” Will nodded. “And then we hung out in my basement for the rest of the day, trying to figure out what you meant and how to get you back.”

“Riddles in the dark…” muttered Dustin.

“But then we remembered when El flipped the D&D board,” said Mike.

“And I realized it’s like the Vale of Shadows!”

“From D&D?”

“Yeah!” Dustin looked pleased that _someone_ else got the reference without needing an explanation. “A parallel dimension. We just needed to figure out how to get there.”

“Shadow walk, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Lucas scoffed, “But like in real life. None of us can shadow walk. Well, sounds like maybe the Demogorgon can…”

“But that still doesn’t explain all the portals,” Dustin argued, “unless it does some sort of hybrid thing.”

“Boys?” Joyce had slipped in without any of them noticing. “You should probably think about heading home soon. The weather’s not looking that great outside.”

The boys all sighed. “But Mrs. Byers!”

Joyce raised a finger and they quieted. “In exchange, maybe you can all have dinner here tomorrow? I’ll clear it with your parents.” She had a twinkle in her eye.

Dustin and Lucas whooped as Mike clutched Will tighter. “Okay, Mrs. Byers,” he relented. Even Will was smiling brightly.

“Oh,” cried Dustin, “Can’t forget your homework, Byers!” He pulled an unadorned folder out of his backpack, only slightly crumpled.

“Thanks,” said Will, taking the folder gingerly. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Of course!”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Mike hopped down off the bed and hugged Will again. “But I’ll miss you,” he whispered to Will. “Channel five?”

“Channel five,” Will confirmed.

* * *

As soon as Mike got home, he dropped his bag by the door and ran for the phone, ignoring his mom’s scolding. He dialed the Byers’ number, bouncing his leg as the line rang. If Jonathan did the same thing he’d done the past couple days, he should be at home now, working on homework and cooking a hot meal to bring for Will and Joyce.

Jonathan picked up on the fifth ring. “Hello?”

“Jonathan! It’s Mike! …Mike Wheeler,” he added, in the face of Jonathan’s continuing silence.

“Oh, hi Mike. Is – is everything okay?” He couldn’t keep a hint of worry out of his voice.

“What? Oh – yeah. Everything’s fine. The weather wasn’t looking good, so your mom told us to head home.”

“Right, makes sense.”

Mike was beginning to remember why he didn’t talk to Jonathan that often. Like Will, he took a while to open up. Unlike Will, Mike wasn’t willing to put in the required effort.

“So, uh –”

“Can I ask –”

Jonathan chuckled awkwardly. “You go first.”

“Can I ask you a favor?”

“Yeah, of course. What’s up, buddy?”

“Uh, so you know the Supercomms, right? The walkies?”

“Yeah?”

“And how they don’t reach out to your house that well?”

“Yeah, Will always seemed a little bummed about that.”

“Well, uh, I think I worked something out with that guy Bob at RadioShack so I can talk to Will now. But I wanna test it out before Will gets home so I don’t lead him on or anything, y’know?”

“…Okay.”

“So maybe you could take Will’s walkie home tomorrow night to, like, change the batteries or something? But you gotta make sure to bring it back after the test, so I can actually talk to him that night too.”

"Yeah, sure. I can do that."

“Awesome, you’re the best! Talk to you later! Bye!”

“Bye,” replied Jonathan, but Mike had already hung up the phone.

Karen was waiting with her hands on her hips. “Michael?”

He sighed. “Yes, Mom?” He steeled himself for another stupid conversation.

Karen seemed to notice this and deflated. “How’s Will doing?” she asked instead.

 _Oh._ “Uh, he’s fine. Getting better every day. Mrs. Byers invited us to stay for dinner tomorrow?”

“Of course, of course,” Karen waved him off. “And – how are you?”

Mike almost blew her off, but something in her eyes reminded him of Will. “I’m –” he rocked back and forth. “Being with Will helps,” he finally settled on, nodding.

Karen pursed her lips. “I’m glad you have each other,” she said after a pause.

“Yeah. Me too.” Feeling sufficiently awkward, he ran back to get his bag. “Gotta go do my homework!” he called as he raced up the stairs.

* * *

“Mike?” A weak voice crackled from the radio on Mike’s nightstand. Mike’s hand shot out and grabbed it. He’d just changed into his pajamas.

“Will!”

“Hey, um, I know it’s kinda late –”

“I was just about to call!”

“But could you help me with this fraction nonsense?”

Something warm bubbled up inside Mike and came out as a laugh. “Yeah, of course!”

If they stayed up past Mike’s bedtime, well, no one came to check on him. If it was a little easier for both of them to fall asleep that night, well, that’s what best friends were for, right?


	7. Preparation

**Friday, November 18, 1983**

Mike breathed heavily as he got off his bike in front of RadioShack. It wasn’t that far from the middle school, but he needed to be as quick as possible so that he could get back to the hospital, back to Will.

Once his breathing had evened out a little, he leaned his bike against the storefront. Only Dustin had cared enough to even figure out how to add a kickstand to his bike, and none of them had the tools, anyways. Wiping his brow, he walked inside.

For once, Bob’s head popped up at the little chime to door made when it opened. “Mike!” he called across the store, by way of greeting.

“Hey, Bob.” Mike gave a half-smile. It still felt weird calling adults by their first name.

“I was going to reach out this afternoon – I put the finishing touches on this morning, but wanted to wait until you’d be home from school.”

“Oh, well, I’m here now. And that’s awesome! Can I see? The repeater?” He needed to get to the hospital, sure, but when he finally told Will, he wanted to make sure he could explain all of the details.

“Hmm,” Bob considered. “I suppose so. Come on back. You can drop your bag against the wall.”

Mike did so as Bob led him into the back room. He stared around in awe at all the stock of electronic equipment, but his reverie was broken when Bob called him over to – a ladder? _Oh, the roof. Right._ “You – want me to go up there?” he asked, trying to keep the tremble out of his voice.

“That’s where it is,” Bob chuckled. “Scared of heights, huh?”

“I – no!” Bob just looked down at him. “Maybe?” He fought down a blush. “Fine, maybe a little.”

“Nothing wrong with that!” Bob said as he started climbing. “When I was younger, I was scared to death of this clown Mr. Baldo, absolutely terrified. Remind me to tell you about that later.” He looked down from the roof at Mike. “Come on, I got you.”

Mike sucked in a breath.

“Just keep your eyes on me.”

 _I can do this. For Will._ Before he had time to think about it too much, he’d started climbing up, and before he knew it, Bob was helping him up over the lip.

“Whoa!” exclaimed Mike. He could see out over most of downtown Hawkins – not that there was that much to see.

Bob smiled down at him fondly. “So the repeater’s right over here,” he said, pulling Mike out of his head again. “Set to channel five, right?”

“Yeah,” Mike vaguely, smiling stupidly as he thought of how excited Will was going to be.

“So who’s the lucky lady, eh?”

Mike wrinkled his nose. “Huh? Lady?”

“Oh, sorry,” said Bob, holding up his hands. “I just assumed, with it being a private channel and all…”

Mike scoffed. “It’s for Will, remember?”

“Right, right! My mistake.”

“He’s my best friend,” Mike clarified.

“Of course. He’s lucky to have a friend like you.”

Mike’s heart swelled with pride. “I’m lucky to have him.”

Bob spent a couple minutes explaining the details of how the radio repeater worked, and Mike was actually able to follow most of it. Dustin probably would have understood better, but this was Mike’s idea, and he didn’t need Dustin’s help.

His head swimming with ideas and thoughts of Will, he forgot to be afraid as he climbed down the ladder. Once he reached the bottom, he glanced at his watch. “Shoot,” he said, “I gotta get going. Thanks for everything, Bob! I’m sure I’ll see you soon!”

“Bye, Mike,” Bob called as Mike dashed out of the store.

* * *

Will only heard two sets of footsteps coming down the hall, so even though it was right around when the Party would arrive, he figured it was just a couple of doctors. But then the door opened and Lucas and Dustin came through and Will’s heart caught in his throat. “Where’s Mike?” he squeaked out.

Lucas narrowed his eyes. “Nice to see you, too.”

“I mean, I’m glad you’re here, but –” His eyes darted back and forth frantically and he heard his breathing speed up as his muscles tensed.

Lucas rolled his eyes and took pity on him. “He just had to stop by downtown to run an errand for his mom or something. He’ll be here soon.”

“Oh.” Will deflated and sank back against his pillows, passively accepting hugs from Dustin and Lucas. They drew up chairs like yesterday, and Dustin pulled out his daily homework folder.

“There are some more fractions, sorry man.”

“Oh, um, Mike helped me some last night and I think I understand them better now?”

“That’s awesome!” grinned Dustin as he shot a glance at Lucas. “So if I wanted to add 2/3 and 3/5, what would you do?”

Will groaned as he worked the mental math. “Well, you’ve gotta get a common denominator, so that’d be 15, I guess. So then it would be… 10/15 plus 9/15, which is 17/15.”

“Simplified?”

Will thought for a moment, then glared in outrage. “That _is_ simplified. Seventeen’s prime, you moron.” Dustin just smiled and Will couldn’t help smiling back at him.

“Did we come here just to do math?” complained Lucas.

“I just want to make sure that Master William here is receiving a quality education,” Dustin defended.

“Fine,” Lucas grumbled good-naturedly, silently agreeing with Will that subtracting fractions really was a crime against humanity.

After a few minutes, Dustin was willing to concede that “maybe Mike _is_ useful every once in a while.”

“Unlike some people…” Will muttered under his breath.

“Whoa!” replied Dustin. “Who’s been taking notes for you the past two weeks?”

“Who said I was talking about you?”

“So anyways!” cut in Lucas, not liking where the conversation was headed, “Where’s your mom, Will?”

“Yeah, growing boys need pizza!” exclaimed Dustin.

Will scoffed. “It’s not even 3:30, Dustin!”

Dustin affected a look of outrage. “So?”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Lucas pointed out.

“Oh, uh.” Will flushed a little. “She knows that you guys come over after school and I asked her to give us a little space so we can hang out, just the four of – Mike!”

“The four of Mike,” Dustin muttered, but even if he were deaf he could tell that Mike had just appeared from Will’s face alone. “Get your ass in here, Wheeler,” he called without turning around.

Will flushed a much deeper red as Mike turned around and stuck his butt through the doorway before entering properly, plopping said butt on Will’s bed to kick off his shoes.

Lucas wrinkled his nose. “You stink, man,” he commented as Mike shed his backpack and jacket. “Ever heard of this thing called deodorant?”

“Screw you too, Lucas,” Mike retorted. He sniffed his armpit. “Just a little sweaty. Not that bad.” He assumed his normal position, tucking Will under his arm, conveniently placing his armpit right by Will’s face. “Right, Will?”

“Uh, it’s not that bad,” he said honestly. “But you are kinda sweaty.” Mike smelled – more intense than normal, was probably the best way to describe it. There was a faint undertone of the flowery laundry detergent Mrs. Wheeler used, but any hint of Mike’s woodsy deodorant was gone, if he had even remembered to put it on this morning. The overpowering smell, though, was pure Mike. Will hadn’t met anyone else that smelled half as good as Mike – not that he went around smelling people, mind you – but when you hung out with someone so often, you couldn’t help but notice when they smelled like Mike did.

“Sellout,” muttered Lucas. “And everyone knows you have a terrible sense of smell anyways, Wheeler.”

“Rude,” replied Mike.

“Facts,” responded Dustin. “Remember when we did that smell test in fifth grade science?”

“It was rigged!” objected Mike. “Just because I didn’t know what oregano smelled like doesn’t mean –”

“Give it up, Mike. Science has proved you wrong.”

“But Will said I smelled good!” protested Mike, shoving his armpit back in Will’s face.

Will only allowed himself a brief whiff before pulling back and wrinkling his nose. “Watch yourself,” he cautioned. “I only said it wasn’t bad.”

“Hmph,” Mike grunted, tucking Will back under his arm. “So did I miss anything?”

“Just fractions,” groaned Lucas.

“How was your errand?” asked Will.

“Oh, it was – fine,” Mike replied evasively.

“What did your mom need?” asked Will, probing, as Dustin and Lucas darted their eyes back and forth.

“Just, uh – it was an errand for me. I’ll explain later?” Mike fidgeted with his hands, unable to lie to Will.

Will pursed his lips, nonplussed. “You’d better.”

“I will, I promise!” Mike tried his best to look earnest.

Will raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Uh-huh.”

“Anyways!” interrupted Dustin. “As much as I love watching you two flirt –” he observed carefully as Mike recoiled slightly but Will just blushed while trying to maintain a perfectly neutral expression – “maybe Will could tell us more about the Upside-Down?” He patiently waited for Mike to finish spluttering denials.

“Uh, yeah,” coughed Will. “Right. So like I was saying, I kinda collapsed in the graveyard, ‘cause it felt like it was night.”

“Wait, you mean, there isn’t a sun?” interrupted Dustin.

“I don’t think so? It’s always dark – not pitch black, more like just after twilight. It could just always be cloudy, though, I guess.”

“You can still see the sun through clouds,” Dustin said dismissively, waving his hand. “You said there were vines, right?”

“All over,” confirmed Will.

“Fascinating,” mused Dustin. “If there’s no sun, then there’s no photosynthesis. They must have a totally different ecosystem! And where’s the heat coming from?”

“I told you it was cold!” protested Will.

“Yeah, like November cold,” corrected Dustin. “Not freakin’ absolute zero cold, like if there were no sun at all. Maybe their sun’s further away, or it’s a dwarf star or a neutron star or the planet has synchronous rotation… I’ll have to do some research!”

“Yeah, you do that,” Lucas groused.

“Like I was saying,” Will valiantly tried to regain control of the conversation, “the next ‘day’ I went back to my house, to see if the portal was back. And it was!” He didn’t smile. “But Dad was boarding it up in the real world, and I guess he couldn’t hear me, or…”

“Fucking Lonnie,” Mike muttered.

“Mike!” Will exclaimed, startled by the vehemence in his voice.

“No, seriously. Fuck him. Jonathan told Nancy who told me that the only reason he even came back for your funeral was to try to sue Sattler to pay off his debts.”

“Oh,” said Will in a very small voice, the kind that made Mike wish that he sometimes thought before he spoke.

“But it wasn’t even your real funeral,” Lucas pointed out, “so it doesn’t count, right?”

“I guess,” Will half-heartedly agreed as Mike rubbed circles on his shoulder with his right hand and held Will’s hand with his left. “I tried smashing a chair against the wall, but Dad boarding it up in the real world somehow actually closed the portal too.”

“Fascinating,” muttered Dustin.

“And I guess I forgot about the lights inside, ‘cause I really wasn’t thinking straight at that point, but I figured I could check the other places people had come through to see if there were any new portals? There was nothing in the shed where I had come through, so I headed over to – Steve Harrington’s house?” He glanced up at Mike.

“Yeah,” Mike confirmed. “That’s where Barb disappeared.”

“But on the way there, I found a – a man.”

“Who?” asked Dustin, leaning forwards.

“I don’t know. He was bleeding pretty bad. He’d been out hunting in the woods with someone named Dale, but I didn’t get his name. He was black,” he offered, glancing at Lucas. Lucas shrugged. “I told him we would find Dale, but he – he –” His breath started catching and he turned to bury his head in Mike’s chest.

“It’s okay,” Mike whispered over and over, running his hands over Will’s back and his fingers through his hair. “Our turn?”

“Uh, no,” said Will, emerging again, “’cause just then I heard someone calling for Jonathan. I couldn’t tell who it was, but then I followed the voice, and I saw Nancy.”

“Hold up. Like Mike’s Nancy?” asked Lucas, disbelieving.

“Yeah,” Mike confirmed. “She was there. She told me she and Jonathan were trying to kill the Demogorgon or something? But obviously they didn’t know what they were up against.”

“Yeah,” agreed Will. “When I saw her, she was hiding behind a tree, and the Demogorgon was looking for her, and it was between her and a portal. I had to get it away from her somehow, so I threw a rock and that distracted it.”

“So it can hear,” observed Dustin.

“Uh… yeah. It worked. Nancy was able to get through the portal, but… it closed before I could get there. I – almost gave up then.” His voice cracked. “Clearly I was just meant to just stay trapped there forever.”

“No,” whispered Mike in his hair. “Don’t ever think that.”

Just then, a doctor appeared at the doorway. Rather than releasing Will, Mike just stared defiantly at her.

“Is your mother here, Will?” she asked, studiously avoiding meeting Mike’s eyes.

“Uh, no,” mumbled Will.

“Do you know when she’ll be back?” the doctor asked after an awkward pause.

Will flushed. “Oh. Uh. Around 5, I think.”

“Alright, thank you. I just have some details to go over with her.”

The boys all stared at each other in confusion after she left.

“What do you suppose that was about?” asked Dustin.

“No idea,” Lucas shrugged.

Will just shrugged when Mike glanced at him, but there was a spark of hope in his eye. “So what were you all up to that day?” he asked.

“Well, we didn’t go to school, ‘cause your funeral was that morning.”

“…right.” They’d mentioned that the first night, but he hadn't really been processing anything then (except Mike’s face, but he was _not_ going to think about that right now). And thinking about your own funeral – well, it was freaking weird, okay?

“Wish you could’ve been there,” offered Mike to break the silence that was quickly moving towards awkward. “Like Tom Sawyer!”

Lucas narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you mean Huckleberry Finn?”

“Guys,” Dustin weighed in, “it was definitely both of them.”

The tension successfully broken, the conversation continued on. “What – what was it like?” asked Will quietly.

“Uh, fine. Pastor Charles ran the service,” offered Dustin.

“Jennifer Hayes was crying.” Lucas winked at Will, causing him to glare and flush slightly.

“Did you say hi to her?” he asked.

“Uh…”

“Guys! Yes, I got you, Will. She says hi back.”

“Thank you, Dustin,” Will replied, glaring at the other two. Lucas just shrugged. Mike repositioned himself, and Will was sure it was purely coincidental that he ended up with his body flush against Will’s. He sighed in contentment, settling back against Mike.

“But, yeah,” continued Lucas. “It was pretty much a normal funeral, I guess? Y’know, sad and shit. Except for us, obviously, ‘cause we knew you were out there.”

“I was mostly impatient,” said Mike. “I just wanted to be out there looking for the gate, looking for you. And I didn’t like being at your funeral, even if it was fake,” he mumbled.

“Everyone threw roses on your coffin!” Dustin added.

“Uh… cool.”

“Did you know Mr. Clarke plays D&D?” asked Dustin when it became clear no one else was going to say anything.

“What? No way!” yelled Will.

“Yeah way! He knew what the Vale of Shadows was, unlike _some_ people,” he replied, shooting a side-eyed glare at Lucas. Lucas wrinkled his nose.

“Why were you –”

“It was at the reception,” explained Mike. “Or whatever you call that time after the funeral when everyone talks and eats.”

“‘Eats’ is maybe a little strong,” Dustin complained. “They had fake Nilla Wafers, Will! Fake. Nilla. Wafers. At your own funeral. It was a travesty. You gotta put a clause in your will or something so that doesn’t happen again.”

Will laughed. “Sure, Dustin. Whatever you say. So why were you talking to him about the Vale of Shadows?”

“Well, we knew that there was a gate to the Upside-Down, but not how to get there, so we asked Mr. Clarke, ‘cause he knows, like, everything.”

“And he didn’t find that weird, that you were talking about how to travel to parallel dimensions at my funeral?”

Dustin shrugged. “I mean. What else were we gonna do? Eat fake-ass Nilla Wafers?”

“So what did he say?”

“Oh, hang on, I got this. Dustin, pass me some paper, will you?”

“Here,” murmured Will, offering Mike his homework folder.

“Perfect,” he said distractedly, awkwardly using his left hand to pull a pencil out of his pocket. So imagine you have a tightrope, yeah?” Will nodded as Mike clumsily drew a horizontal line across the front of the folder. “If you’re an acrobat, you can only move back and forth.”

“One spatial dimension,” interjected Dustin.

“Right. But the tightrope isn’t a literal one-dimensional line, ‘cause it has thickness. So if you’re a flea on the tightrope, you could also walk _around_ the tightrope, like this, ‘cause that’s a –”

“Second spatial dimension.”

“… yeah, thanks, Dustin. So if you scale up a few dimensions, we’re the acrobat, trapped in our three spatial dimensions. But the Demogorgon – and you – seem to have somehow used some extra dimension to slip across to the Upside-Down.”

“Like the flea.”

“Exactly.”

“…this isn’t a short joke, is it?”

“What? No! Scout’s honor.”

“…you weren’t ever a scout, Mike,” said Will, narrowing his eyes.

“Thank goodness,” muttered Mike.

“Guys!” Lucas interjected, “That was exactly how Mr. Clarke explained it to us, okay?”

“Okay,” conceded Will.”

“But Mr. Clarke _also_ said that you’d need a shit-ton of energy to hold open a gate between dimensions – no, he didn’t phrase it quite like that,” he clarified, responding to Will’s disbelieving eyebrows – “and that it would disrupt gravity and magnetic fields and _stuff_.”

“Sure, but what good does that do you?”

“Well, none for a bit,” Dustin was on a roll now. “But after the funeral, we went back to Mike’s house, and I had a brilliant realization – compasses!”

Will stared. Dustin looked absurdly proud of himself. Lucas just sighed.

“…Compasses?” Will asked warily.

“Here we go again,” muttered Lucas.

“Yes, compasses!” Dustin sounded indignant. “Hello, magnetic field disruption, compasses, yeah?”

“Oh,” replied Will. “…oh! You mean they weren’t pointing north?”

“Exactly!” Dustin pointed at Will, looking even more pleased. “I wish you were there instead of these two numbskulls. And it wasn’t just mine,” he added, heading off any dissension. “All seven of them pointed in the same direction – the same _wrong_ direction!”

“All… seven?”

“I had a couple lying around the basement,” muttered Mike.

“And my dad had a bunch from ‘Nam.”

“Anyways, once those two got their shit together, we took El and followed where the compasses were pointing.”

“Since they should be pointing to the gate!”

“Right!”

“ _Should_ be…” muttered Lucas darkly.

“Huh?” asked Will.

“They _should_ have pointed to the gate,” repeated Lucas, “But they didn’t. ‘Cause El was messing with them.”

“But – why would she do that?”

“Because she was _scared_ ,” burst out Mike, glaring at Lucas. “The gate was in the lab where she grew up and was tortured.”

“Yeah, but she _created_ it,” countered Lucas.

“She didn’t _mean_ to!”

Mike was breathing heavily. Will hastily took his hands in his to try to calm him down.

“So once I realized that we’d looped around,” Dustin said with deliberate lightness, “these two began fighting like goblins with intelligence scores of zero, as you just observed. And, uh, El kind of threw Lucas with her mind and briefly knocked him unconscious.”

“What?” yelped Will.

“I was fine,” Lucas defended himself. “Just pissed off, and rightfully so. It seemed like El had betrayed us, but –”

“But?” prompted Mike.

“But I can see how she _might_ have been trying to keep us safe. Maybe. But I was just angry at the time, so I went home to cool off.”

“He was _mad_ ,” clarified Dustin. “Like, really mad.”

“Yeah, well Mike had pushed me over and then El concussed me! I think I had a right to be mad!”

“Mike?” Will turned up to face him in disbelief.

“I… yeah,” Mike admitted, looking embarrassed. “I wasn’t mad at him, not really. Just scared, mostly. ‘Cause El was the only way to find you, and this was the second time she’d led us on a wild goose chase, and… yeah. Sorry again, Lucas.”

“All good, man. We made up.”

Mike showed his teeth, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Maybe we can talk about something else now?” he asked weakly. Lucas nodded in agreement.

“Oh! So all of this talk about compasses reminded me,” Dustin jumped in, “You remember how I started that topographic map of Hawkins last year…?”

* * *

Joyce arrived a little after 5. She poked her head in to Will’s room, but she went unnoticed since everyone’s attention was on Dustin and Lucas, who appeared to be debating the difference between fjords and well-mixed estuaries.

“Boys?” she called softly when one of them paused to breathe.

Dustin’s eyes widened as he swiveled his head around to face her. “Pizza?” he yelled, “Uh, I mean, hi, Mrs. Byers! It’s great to see you?”

She couldn’t help but return his ingratiating grin. Someday his teeth would grow in, but in the meantime he certainly knew how to use it to his advantage. She raised her eyebrows. “Yes, I had Jonathan bring it down to the cafeteria.”

“Sweet!” The boys all moved towards the door. Dustin and Lucas were already dashing down the hall by the time Mike had helped Will down from the bed.

“Oh, Mom?” he said, “I just remembered – the doctors were looking for you on the way in. I don’t know what about.”

And now Joyce was truly smiling. “Oh, they caught me on the way down here. They got the results back from the Lab.” She saw Will tense and instinctively move closer to Mike, who stepped forward as if to protect him. “You will need to have some follow-up appointments, but…” she intentionally drew out the suspense. At the moment Will was about to crack, she continued, “you get to go home tomorrow!”

Will’s face lit up as she had known it would. He squealed in delight and threw his arms around Mike. (For Mike’s part, he returned the gesture just as fiercely.) She asked, “Wanna go tell Dustin and Lucas?” after a moment, bringing them back to the real world.

Will blushed a little, but neither he nor Mike made any move to let go of each other. Mike kept an arm around Will’s shoulders, ostensibly just helping to keep him steady as they walked down to the cafeteria. Joyce smiled to herself. Will had been walking fine on his own for a couple days now. It was – sweet of him to look out for Will so much.

By the time they had made it down, Dustin and Lucas were already on their second slices. She shot a glance at Jonathan. He just shrugged. “I tried,” he said, gesturing vaguely at the boys.

Somehow when Joyce turned back to them, Mike was handing Will a slice and had already consumed half of one himself. Oh, to have the metabolism of a twelve-year-old boy again.

“Guys,” said Will before he started eating, “I have some good news!”

“Mmm?” asked Dustin.

“I get to go home tomorrow!”

“Dude!” yelled Dustin, who had by now swallowed the rest of his pizza. He got up and hugged Will, leaving pizza grease stains on the back of his shirt.

“Congrats, man,” smiled Lucas. “Gonna be good to bust out of here, yeah?”

“Yeah! I can’t wait to see Chester again!”

Joyce grabbed a slice of pizza herself and took a seat, letting the boys’ eager conversation wash over her.

* * *

All too soon, the pizza was consumed, and it was time for the boys to start heading home. Jonathan gathered up everyone’s trash to throw it out.

“Wait, let me help you!” cried Mike, leaping up. Jonathan gave him a quizzical look, but let Mike pick up the empty pizza boxes.

Once they were halfway across the room, Mike spoke. “You gotta bring Will’s walkie home for a bit, remember?”

“Right, yeah,” said Jonathan. “I’ll do that right now, yeah, once we get Will back to his room?”

“Cool, thanks,” replied Mike. “Huh. Maybe you are as cool as Will says you are.”

“I – wha –” But Mike was already skipping back to the rest of the Party.

As they passed the entrance, Dustin and Lucas started to head outside, but paused as Mike didn’t join them. “I just gotta get my bag and coat,” he said, looking at them like it should have been obvious. “Wait for me?”

“Yeah, okay,” Lucas sighed, sinking down against the wall.

“I’m gonna, uh, use the facilities,” commented Dustin. “This pizza’s going through me real fast.”

“Ew,” said Mike, wrinkling his face up. “Gross, Dustin. I’ll be right back.”

As they walked down the hall, Mike kept glaring at Jonathan, but he didn’t say anything. Once they got back to 113, Mike couldn’t take it anymore. “Hey Will,” he said casually, “You don’t have your charger here, do you? Your walkie must be running pretty low on batteries.”

Will’s eyes widened. “Oh, shoot, you’re right.”

Jonathan cleared his throat. “Uh, I could, y’know, take it home if you want, to change out the batteries? I’d bring it right back, so you could still use it tonight.”

“I – are you sure, Jonathan?”

“Of course.” Jonathan smiled and Will wrapped himself around his older brother.

“Thanks,” he murmured.

“Anyways, I gotta get going,” interjected Mike after a few moments. “Dustin and Lucas will be getting antsy.”

Will pulled back from Jonathan and latched on to Mike. “I’ll call you as soon as I get the walkie back, okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” Mike smiled into Will’s hair. “I eagerly await your call.”

“Dork,” muttered Will, poking Mike in the side.

“Rude.”

“Ticklish.”

At that, Mike backed up in a hurry, scooping up his things. “Uh, see you later, Byers!”

Once he got back to the lobby, Dustin had already returned. “I feel much better, for the record,” he stated. “Glad you made it back alive from hugging Will, like, seventeen thousand times.”

“Shut up,” Mike shot back and stuck out his tongue. “Maybe if you smelled better, he’d hug you too.”

They continued bickering as they headed out the door.

* * *

If he hadn’t been with Lucas and Dustin, Mike would have pedaled much faster to get home. Jonathan lived further away, sure, but he had a car. As it was, he forced the other two to keep pace with him for once.

As soon as he got up to his room (after giving his mom the cursory Will debrief – “He’s coming home tomorrow!”), he pulled out his walkie. “Jonathan, this is Mike. Do you copy? Over.”

A few seconds passed, during which Mike’s heart sped up exponentially, then – “Hey, Mike. It’s Jonathan. You could have told me how to work these things.” The line went silent.

Mike grinned fiercely. “Sorry about that. Wait, so are you home yet? Also, when you’re done talking, say over, so I know you’re done talking. Over.”

“Yeah, I just pulled into the driveway when you called. Over.”

“Awesome. Can you go to his room and call me? Just to make sure? Over.”

“Sure thing. Over.”

After a minute or so, Jonathan’s voice came through again. “I’m in Will’s room. …Over.”

“I copy you loud and clear,” said Mike, giddy with excitement. “Over.”

“So do I actually need to change the batteries? Over.”

“Oh, yeah, you should. Just leave those batteries on Will’s nightstand so he can recharge them when he gets home tomorrow. Over.”

“Will do. See you tomorrow, Mike. Over.”

“Thanks, Jonathan. You’re awesome. Will’s gonna be so excited. Over and out.”

Once Mike hung up, he was suddenly filled with restless energy. He quickly changed into his pajamas and brought his walkie into the bathroom to brush and floss his teeth. He’d just skip showering tonight, because he couldn’t be in the shower when Will called, now could he?

When he was done in the bathroom, Will still hadn’t called. What on earth was taking Jonathan so long? He thought about bothering Nancy, but her door was already closed. He couldn’t call El, because he needed to stay on channel 5 for Will and the thought of Jonathan overhearing that was just weird. He’d call El after he talked to Will.

He was about to give in and call Will first when the radio finally crackled to life.

“Hey, Mike.”

He rushed over to his bed to grab the walkie as he flopped onto his stomach. “Will! You sound clearer!”

“Yeah, new batteries will do that,” Will chuckled.

“Right, yeah, of course. So are you excited to come home tomorrow?”

Mike could hear Will hesitate. “I – yeah, of course.”

“But…?” he prompted, rolling over onto his back.

“But what?”

“Come on, Will. We both know there’s a but.”

“Yeah, your fat one.”

Mike spluttered, but he was mostly just glad that he and Will had fallen back into their old routines so easily. “Avoiding the question much, huh?”

Will sighed. “It’s just – I’ve spent more time there in the Upside-Down than in the real world, recently.”

“Right, yeah. Well, hey, would it help if I were there?”

“…yeah.” Will’s voice was small but full of hope.

“Well,” Mike clicked his tongue, “I guess I just might have to sleep over to fight off any boogeymen that might show up.”

“Are you sure?” asked Will. “You’ve spent a lot of time with me this week already.”

“I mean, if you don’t want me to –”

“No, no!” Will quickly interrupted him. “I do. I just – if you have better things to be doing, then –”

“Better than hanging out with my best friend in the entire world? I think not.”

“I – thanks, Mike. You are too. My best friend, I mean.”

“I should hope so!” Mike pretended to be outraged. “Otherwise I’d have to challenge this interloper to a duel for your friendship.”

“Oh, god, you’d definitely lose.”

“What?” screeched Mike in outrage.

“I mean, have you seen your scrawny little arms?”

“Wow, rude! Who said it was gonna be a physical duel, anyways?”

“What, are you gonna talk him to death?”

“I was thinking trivia, actually. About you.”

“…Oh. You probably could win that.”

“Probably?”

“Okay, fine. You could definitely win that.”

“That’s right, and don’t you forget it.”

Will just made a noise in response.

“So I’m sleeping over tomorrow, right?”

“If you insist,” Will said with a smile in his voice.

“Well, I do.”

“Good,” Will yawned. “Not gonna lie, all that pizza kinda tired me out. We can talk more tomorrow, though, right?”

“Actually, I was planning on sleeping over tomorrow but remaining completely silent the entire time.”

“Mikeeee.”

“I’m obviously kidding, Will. You know I can’t go like five seconds without talking.”

Will giggled, then yawned again. “You got that right, Wheeler. Have a good night, Mike.”

“G’night, Will!” He closed his eyes, trying to savor the feeling that everything was right with the world.

He called Lucas and Dustin to make sure they were okay, and called El without response. He glanced at the clock. It wasn’t close to his bedtime yet, but if he went to sleep now, then tomorrow would come sooner, and he could see Will sooner. He turned off his lights and curled up on his side, holding a pillow in his arms. After a lot of tossing and turning earlier this week, he’d discovered that it was a lot easier to fall asleep holding something. Even if that something wasn’t Will.


	8. Sacrifice

**Saturday, November 19, 1983**

Will hovered as his mom talked to the doctor out in the hallway. The Lab had returned his backpack last night, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to put it back on yet. He made a face. He should be happy to be getting out of the hospital and going home, but all he could feel right now was anxiety. His throat was tight and his stomach clenched and he couldn’t stay still and –

He reached into his backpack without thinking and instinctively pulled out his radio. “Mike, are you there?”

“I’m here! What’s up? Are you home yet? Can I come over?”

Will chuckled, then frowned. Mike had answered so quickly that the walkie must have been right next to him, just waiting for Will to call.

“How could I call you if I were already home, numbskull? You know I’m out of range.”

“Right, right, yeah,” Mike laughed breathily. “I wasn’t thinking. Sorry.”

“You’re all good. I’m surprised you’re even up this early.”

“Yeah, I mean. I haven’t been sleeping as much this week, I guess?”

“Nightmares?” Will whispered.

“I mean, I…” Mike trailed off.

“Me too.”

A pause, then, “I’m glad I’m not the only one. I mean, god, not that I _want_ you to have nightmares too, but…”

“Yeah, I get it. You wanna talk about them, or?”

Mike scratched his neck. “Uh, maybe later tonight. Not right now.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“So when are you getting home?” Mike sounded Eager again.

“Uh, soon. Mom’s just getting the final rundown now. We’ll be leaving any minute.” And there was the anxiety again, hitting him full-force. Images of the empty Upside-Down parody of his house flashed before his eyes.

“Will? Will?”

Will didn’t know how long he had zoned out, but clearly it was long enough for Mike to get concerned. “Yeah, I’m here,” he said, his voice only wavering slightly.

“I can – I can meet you at home, if you want? So I’m there when you get home?”

Will bit his lip as he felt tears pooling up. “Mike. Yes. Please.” He hoped he didn’t sound as weak as he felt.

“Do you want, uh, should I invite Dustin and Lucas too?”

Will inhaled sharply and shook his head, not thinking that Mike couldn’t see him. “I, uh, could it just be you today?” he said finally. It was fine to break down in front of Mike. It would be fine in front of Dustin and Lucas too, of course, but he didn’t really feel like it. And more than anything, he needed to feel _seen_ today, and as much as he meant well, Mike’s attention was necessarily divided when the whole Party was there.

“Yeah. Obviously. Of course. Whatever you want, Will.”

A lot of thoughts ran through Will’s head, but all he said was, “Thanks.”

“Will?” called Joyce from the hallway.

“Coming, Mom,” he yelled back. “I gotta go,” he said into the walkie. “See you soon?”

“You betcha! Over and out.”

Will smiled as he dropped the walkie back into his bag, zipped it up, and slung it over his shoulders.

“Hey, sunshine,” Joyce greeted him as he stepped out into the hallway, ruffling his hair. “What’s got you so smiley?”

Will flushed. “Nothing…”

“Excited to go home, huh?”

“Yeah, sure.”

She shot him a glance. “Jonathan’s going to be there.”

“Is he even awake yet?”

Joyce glanced at her watch. “Hmm, good point. But he’ll _be_ there, at least.”

“So will Mike,” muttered Will under his breath.

“Oh?” asked Joyce, reaching for his cheeks. “Now I know why you’re so smiley!”

Will wriggled away from her. “Stop it, Mom! And can he, uh, can he sleep over tonight?”

Joyce could see the desperation in her son’s eyes. “Of course,” she said softly.

* * *

As promised, Mike was sitting on the porch swing as Joyce’s car trundled up the driveway. He jumped up as soon as they got closer and ran up to Will’s door.

“Welcome home!” he shouted once Will opened his door a crack.

“Thanks, Wheeler. You wanna move so I can get out?”

“Oh. Right,” said Mike, chuckling awkwardly as he stepped back.

Will opened the door the rest of the way and stepped out, feeling the weight of Mike’s eyes on him. “You just saw me, like, less than a day ago, y’know?”

“Yeah,” said Mike, not looking away. “But that was _there_. Now you’re home.”

Will sucked in his breath through his teeth. “Yeah,” he said.

“Come on, boys,” Joyce called from the porch.

“Here, I got you,” said Mike, slinging an arm around Will’s shoulder.

“I can walk just fine, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” replied Mike, sounding entirely pleased with himself.

As soon as Joyce opened the front door, Chester bounded out. “Hey, buddy!” called Will, crouching down and patting his legs. “Here, boy!”

Chester leaped up, almost bowling Will over if Mike hadn’t been there to support him. Joyce watched fondly from the front porch as it turned into an impromptu wrestling match. She caught Mike’s eye and threw him a tennis ball before shutting the door. Chester had always been closest to Will out of all of them. She knew they would come inside when Will was ready.

* * *

Mike and Will spent a while outside, and Will at least was exhausted when they got back inside. His mom had made them all soup (even Jonathan, who had finally woken up), then the afternoon was spent watching TV and reading comic books. Mike had of course brought over some from his own collection that he thought Will would enjoy. With Mike’s arm slung over his shoulders as they sat on the couch, Will ended up taking an impromptu afternoon nap. When he woke up, he tried to be embarrassed – at least for the drool stain on Mike’s shirt – but Mike just smiled down at him and asked, “How’d you sleep?”

“Really good,” he replied, and it was true. For the first time in a while, he couldn’t remember any nightmares, and Mike would’ve woken him up if he’d been screaming.

“Good,” said Mike, and Will could tell he meant it. “I know you were worried about being back home, but it seems like you’re doing okay.”

Will craned his neck back to look up at the alphabet painted on the wall behind him, then shivered and snuggled back into Mike. “You being here helps,” he muttered into Mike’s chest.

“You don’t need to tell me how awesome I am, Byers,” Mike teased. “Trust me, I already know.”

Will pulled back so he could look Mike in the eyes. “Do you, though?” he asked seriously. “I don’t – I couldn’t do this without you. I probably wouldn’t _be_ here without you.”

Mike glanced away. “I think you underestimate how fierce your mom and Jonathan are,” he coughed. “And anyways, you, uh, you’re the one that makes me awesome. “They both tensed at the sound of footsteps, but it was just Jonathan moving from his room to the kitchen. “We can, uh, talk more after dinner?” asked Mike.

“Y – yeah, sounds good,” Will stuttered. “These comics aren’t gonna read themselves, right?” he asked to lighten the mood.

“Truer words have never been spoken, Byers,” said Mike solemnly. “You wanna give me my arm back?” he asked.

“No,” replied Will cheekily, but he rearranged himself so he lay lengthwise on the couch, his legs resting on Mike’s lap. He’d rolled up his jeans a bit – Mom had lit a fire, so it was a good deal warmer than the hospital – and Mike idly toyed with the hem as they read in comfortable silence. _If only Mike_ – but, no. There was no way Will was going to ruin this perfect moment.

* * *

After dinner, Mike and Will retreated to his room. Will flopped down on his bed as Mike just hovered awkwardly. Will frowned, patting the seat next to him. “Come on, dude.” Mike hesitated, but settled down next to Will after a moment. “What’s wrong? You haven’t had a problem being in my bed all week.”

“Well, I mean, it’s not – it wasn’t _your_ bed, y’know?” Mike stammered.

“Uh, I mean, I guess? If this is weird, you can –”

“No, no!” Mike hastily interrupted. “It’s nice – good. I just wanted to make sure you were okay with it.”

“No duh. It’s not like we haven’t shared this bed plenty of times before?”

“Yeah, okay. Cool. Thanks. Anyways, uh, wanna tell some stories? We could probably finish tonight – if you want to, of course. We could always read some more or build a pillow fort or play cards or –”

Will propped himself up on one elbow to place his other hand over Mike’s mouth. “Shut up, Mike,” he said fondly. “I’ll start like usual, yeah? – Ew!” he cried as Mike licked his hand. He wiped his palm on Mike’s shirt as Mike just watched with a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.

“Yeah, sounds great,” he said innocently.

Will narrowed his eyes, then softened his expression. “Can you, uh,” he asked, tugging Mike up into a sitting position and pulling Mike’s arm around his shoulders. Once Mike figured out what Will wanted, he took over, gently pushing Will down so his head rested in Mike’s lap.

“Is this – is this weird?” Will asked as Mike started playing with his hair.

“Only weird if you make it weird,” replied Mike, quirking an eyebrow.

“Oh, well, not weird then,” sighed Will in contentment, leaning into Mike’s hands. “Feels good,” he added.

“Good,” Mike smiled.

They lay in comfortable silence for a moment, then Will began. “I don’t actually have that much more to tell,” he admitted.

“That’s fine,” Mike assured him.

“Shut up! Do you wanna listen or not?” asked Will, pretending to sit up.

“Nooo,” protested Mike as his hands redoubled their efforts, “I do wanna hear, I promise.”

Will sighed as he relaxed again.

“Okay, so after Nancy got back through the portal, I ran… which I needed to do, obviously, because Demogorgon, but also it was hard because I hadn’t really eaten.”

“At all?” asked Mike in horror.

“Well, everything was rotten, like I told you,” said Will. “I’d broken down earlier that day – or maybe the day before, I’m not sure – and eaten a whole loaf of moldy bread from Bradley’s, but I think that was a mistake, because it just reminded my body how hungry I was, and I started – I started hallucinating.”

Mike made a small noise of sympathy, but let him continue.

“It wasn’t bad at first – I don’t even know if it was hallucinating at first, honestly. Just flashes of light in the corner of my eye and chittering sounds everywhere. They could’ve been real, I dunno. And by that time it was getting hard to breathe too. I was on the brink of collapsing. That burst of adrenaline from saving Nancy was all I had left in the tank.”

Mike’s hands stilled for a moment before resuming with increased urgency.

“For once, I had some good luck, and I somehow made it to Castle Byers before I collapsed. It looked like an actual castle too, ‘cause, y’know, hallucinating.”

“That’s kinda cool, right?” Mike asked cautiously.

“Yeah, it was,” Will chuckled. “It literally looked like how I always imagined Will the Wise’s castle would look. But once I got there, that was kind of it. I just fell into that weird state between being awake and asleep, where I couldn’t tell if I was hallucinating or dreaming. I thought it was one of those at the time, but – did El visit me?”

“Yes!” Mike shouted, excited. “She found you in the Void – it’s this kinda in-between space she can go to in her mind to find people. She told you your mom was coming, and you told her to –”

“Hurry,” Will said in a small voice. “So that was real, then. It’s funny – I think some part of me knew that. It helped me to hold on a little longer. I started singing to try to stay awake for when Mom came, but –” He abruptly stopped and shivered.

“But?” prompted Mike. “…oh,” he said after a moment, seeing Will start to tear up. “Come here,” he said softly, pulling Will up and turning his head into his torso. “It’s okay, I got you.”

“I was so scared,” Will sobbed. “Mom was about to find me, and I ruined it by singing, and the – the – _it_ found me. It finally got me,” he sobbed.

“But your mom found you somehow?”

“Yeah, I dunno how. I was mostly unconscious the rest of the time. I woke up once, and I think I was – in the library, maybe? There were other corpses around, and there was – it felt like there was a vine down my throat? But again, I dunno how much I was hallucinating and I thought about Mom and Jonathan and – oh, God, and you and how I –” Will was talking faster and faster and his voice kept getting higher and higher.

“Hey,” interrupted Mike. “You don’t need to tell me any more now – or ever. Just – just breathe with me, okay?”

Will took a minute to get his breathing back under control, focusing on Mike’s chest moving up and down. “There’s not anything more to tell, really. The next thing I remember, my chest really hurt, ‘cause Hopper had just done CPR on me, and he and Mom were there in these spacesuits – turns out the atmosphere’s toxic, who knew, so maybe that’s why I was hallucinating instead of the bread?” He chuckled wryly. “And then the next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital bed with Mom and Jonathan, and then you were there and, well, you know the rest.” He let out a big breath. “It was hard, but – I’m glad we did this. It’s nice, someone else knowing –” his voice hitched slightly – “everything. And I’m glad it’s you.”

“I’m glad it’s me too,” Mike whispered. “I’m so proud of you, Will. You’re so brave. I can’t imagine going through half of what you did, and you’re still here, and you’re still you, and god –” Mike’s arms tightened around Will as he started crying too.

Once they composed themselves a bit, Will managed to untangle himself. “I wanna hear the rest of your story,” he said quietly, “if you’re up for it.”

Mike sniffed. “I – yeah. That’s fair. If you can do it, then I –”

Will made a noise. “Mike, no. This has nothing to do with me. If you’re not ready right now, that’s fine.”

Mike looked down at Will’s earnest face – _he really means it!_ – and steeled himself. “No, I mean, thanks, but I can do this. I _want_ to do this.”

“Okay, said Will. He propped his pillow up against the cupboards behind his bed. “Come here,” he told Mike, and snaked an arm around Mike’s waist as Mike leaned his head on Will’s shoulder. “So what happened after the junkyard fight?” Will asked softly once Mike had settled, blowing some of Mike’s hair out of his mouth.

“Uh, not much else happened that day,” Mike muttered, tensing up at the thought of the fight. Will’s arm tightened around him, helping him to slowly relax again. “El ran off. Lucas was gone. Dustin walked home with me, but he thought I was being an idiot too so he didn’t stay. So, I was just at home alone with no way to find you. I even kicked down El’s blanket fort,” he admitted sheepishly.

“Why?” asked Will curiously.

“’Cause I was mad at her? I dunno. You wouldn’t really get it, I guess – do you ever just get angry?”

Will shrugged.

“I was just so _mad_ , because she promised she could find you, and then she _didn’t_. Twice. And now she’d run off. I knew you were alive, but I couldn’t find you. And that was almost worse than thinking you were dead.” He frowned. “Uh, no, scratch that. That’s not true, actually, but it wasn’t fun either. And I just had all this destructive energy… not that I actually wanted to hurt her, but I wanted to break something and the fort represented her, I guess? And then I just hid in the basement. Mom and Dad thought I was sad because of the funeral, so they left me alone. And I guess Nancy was out monster hunting with Jonathan that night, so she wasn’t even around to not care.”

“Mike,” said Will gently, “You know that Nancy cares about you, right?”

“What? No!” Mike protested automatically, but then he paused and considered the past week. “Well, maybe she does now,” he conceded, “But we’re not close like you and Jonathan, y’know?”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Will agreed, smiling. “it’s pretty hard to be as cool as Jonathan.”

“Sure,” Mike chuckled. “I was probably gonna mope around the house the next day too, but Dustin came over in the morning to beat some sense into me – not literally!” he clarified, feeling Will tense up. “Just Dustin telling it like it is, like he always does. He reminded me that I drew first blood yesterday by pushing Lucas down, so –”

“He threatened to kick you out of the Party?” Will sounded alarmed.

“I mean, yeah, but he knew I wouldn’t. He just had to get me to get my head out of my ass. And it is, y’know –”

“The Rule of Law,” they said in unison, mock-seriously, then cracked up into giggles.

“But yeah, he took me over to Lucas’s house to shake his hand, then we could all go find El, then you.”

“So Lucas shook your hand, and then what?”

“Uh,” Mike hesitated. “He didn’t exactly take my hand…”

“Mike!” Will scolded him. “What did you do?”

“Hey, why is your first instinct that _I_ did something wrong?”

Will turned his head slightly.

“Okay, fine, it’s not an unreasonable instinct,” Mike admitted, “But I honestly don’t think it was my fault this time. He only agreed to shake if we tried to find the gate without Eleven, and I thought he was being stupid.”

“Was he?”

“Yes!” Mike sounded outraged. “Remember the Bloodstone Pass? We don’t split up the Party!”

“Yeah, right,” agreed Will. “Wait, so is El in the Party now?”

“Was,” whispered Mike. He felt Will retreat a little bit. “Will, no, it’s not like that, she didn’t replace you. _No_ one can replace Will the Wise. She’s not even a wizard, she’s a mage. We needed her on this quest to find you. We couldn’t have done it without her. It was – it was always about you, dude.”

“Okay,” Will whispered. “You’ve convinced me. You can keep going.” His arm settled back comfortably around Mike and Mike sighed in contentment.

“So Lucas went off with a compass to find the gate and Dustin and I went off to the junkyard to look for El. He kept trying to explain why Lucas was angry with me, but he was way off-base.”

“Huh, that doesn’t sound like Dustin. What was he saying?”

“Well, he started off by saying that Lucas is my best friend, ‘cause he lives right next door.”

“Oh, well, that makes sense,” murmured Will.

Mike frowned up at Will. “Uh, no. It doesn’t. He’s heard the story of how we met, and I quote, ‘way too many freaking times’. Maybe he meant that I’m Lucas’s best friend, which makes more sense, but I thought he was closer to Dustin now.” He shrugged. “Anyways, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I said that all three of you are my best friends.”

“Aren’t we?”

“Well, I mean, yeah, but you know you’re my best best friend, right, Byers?”

“I, uh, yeah, I do now, I guess.”

Mike lazily reached across to lightly punch Will’s arm. “Stop being silly. It’s always been you. It’s always gonna be you. You’re stuck with me whether you want it or not.”

“Darn,” Will drawled, smiling.

“Anyways, Dustin though Lucas was jealous of how much attention I was paying to El instead of him. But it wasn’t because I liked her better – how could I, I’d only known her for a few days – she was just new, and had superpowers, and could supposedly find you. So he just had a stick up his butt.”

“I mean… I can imagine being jealous in his shoes,” Will muttered.

“You? Jealous?” Mike laughed, but stopped when Will didn’t join in. “Oh, shit, you were being serious. Will, you have nothing to be jealous of, I promise. And if you ever are, please let me know, ‘cause I promise it won’t be intentional.”

“Okay,” agreed Will, snuggling closer.

“So we biked by Bradley’s and the doors were broken and the police were there, so we figured El had been there.”

“Why?” asked Will.

“’Cause she would have been hungry and not had any money,” explained Mike, “and probably didn’t understand you’re even supposed to pay for things anyways. So we started looking for her in the nearby woods, shouting her name. But then, uh, it turns out we weren’t the only ones in the woods. I don’t know what they were doing, but Troy and James found us.”

“Oh no,” breathed Will. “They must have been furious.”

“Uh, yeah,” Mike squirmed. “Troy wasn’t exactly happy he peed himself in front of the whole school. And he had a knife.” Will gasped. “So we dropped our bikes and ran. And obviously we’re faster than those mouth breathers, but Dustin got a cramp by the quarry and James had circled around the other side so they had us pinned. Troy threatened to cut out the rest of Dustin’s baby teeth unless I jumped.”

“Jumped?” asked Will, not understanding.

“Yeah, jumped. Into the quarry.”

“What?” Will shouted. “So what did you do instead?”

“What do you mean, instead?” asked Mike, confused. “I – I jumped.”

“Oh, so you were on the shore then.”

“Uh, no? We were up on the ledge.”

Will sat up and turned around to face Mike, placing his hands on Mike’s shoulders and staring into his eyes. “Mike,” he said, breathing quickly. “Please explain to me what you mean, because I don’t understand and I’m kinda freaking out right now.”

“Why?” asked Mike, utterly bewildered.

“Because it sounds like you leaped hundreds of feet to your death for Dustin’s fucking teeth?” Will was shouting now.

“I mean, I did jump, but I didn’t die?” Mike offered, trying to smile earnestly.

Will abruptly jumped up and started pacing as best he could around the bed. Mike watched on in trepidation. “Uh, Will?” he asked cautiously. “What –”

“What the _hell_ were you thinking?” Will burst out.

“Will, just calm down and –”

“I’m not going to fucking calm down!” Will shouted. Mike shrank back, not saying anything.

“I just – what the hell, Mike? What the hell were you thinking? And how did you – no, we’ll get to that later. Just tell me. What. The hell. Were you thinking.”

Mike couldn’t remember ever seeing Will truly angry before – frustrated, sure; sad, yes; scared, absolutely. But never angry. His gaze darted around the room, trying to look at anything but Will. “I’d failed everyone,” he whispered. “Everyone I care about. You’d been missing a whole week and I had no idea how to find you. El had run off and probably hated me. Lucas – I’d fought with Lucas yesterday, and he definitely hated me. And Dustin was the only one left. I’m the Dungeon Master, I’m supposed to be the leader, and instead I’d failed everyone, and I couldn’t fail Dustin too.” Tears had been welling in his eyes and they started to fall. “I couldn’t. I just – I couldn’t. And without El, how could I find you? I’d been holding it off, but you don’t know how it felt Wednesday night, when I thought you – I thought – I thought you were dead. I thought you were gone forever.” He dropped his head to his knees, curling into a ball, sobbing.

“I do know how you felt,” Will shouted back through his tears. “Because that’s how I’m feeling right now! How do you think I would be doing right now if Mom and Hopper had found me and I woke up and you were fucking dead?”

“Oh, fuck,” said Mike. “I didn’t think of it like that.”

“No, duh,” said Will. “I just –” Rather than trying to finish his thought, he instead launched himself at the ball that was Mike, causing them to both tumble onto their sides, Will wrapped entirely around Mike.

“I’m sorry,” Mike said over and over. “I’m sorry, Will, I’m so, so sorry. I wasn’t thinking and I’m sorry and –”

“Shut up, Mike,” Will replied, half-fierce and half-fond. “I’m not mad at you, you know.”

Mike finally raised his head. “You’re not?” he asked cautiously.

“I’m not,” Will confirmed. “I was just fucking terrified. Mike, you have to promise me you’ll never do something that idiotic again.”

“I promise,” Mike said immediately. “I promise, Will, I promise.”

“Okay,” Will agreed. “I’m gonna hold you to that,” he said seriously.

“I know,” agreed Mike. “You should.”

Will slowly sat up, wiping his face. He sat back against his pillow and pulled Mike between his knees, resting Mike’s head on his chest. He rested his own hands on Mike’s chest, and Mike clasped them with his own.

“So how are you alive?” Will asked finally, after a few minutes of just breathing together. “And, like, not in the hospital in a full body cast?”

“Oh,” Mike laughed. “El showed up at just the right time, and caught me halfway down.”

“With her mind?” asked Will in awe.

“Yeah,” confirmed Mike. “She brought me back up, and gut-punched James, and broke Troy’s arm.”

“Wow,” breathed Will. “I _guess_ she can join the Party,” he said grudgingly.

Mike smiled. “Yeah, it was pretty bad-ass. But it also took a lot out of her. She fainted for a bit, and then when she woke up, she finally admitted that she was the one who had opened the gate. So we went back to grab our bikes and head back to my place to clean El up and regroup and try to find Lucas.

“So as I was taking El’s make-up off, Lucas started calling on the radio. He was out of range –” Will’s face gave a subtle twitch – “But eventually we figured out that the Bad Men were coming, from the Lab. Dustin and I ran upstairs, and there were all these Hawkins Power & Light vans pulling up, and Mom hadn’t ordered any repairs, so we got the hell out of Dodge, but they saw us sneaking out the back, so we were now literally in a car – er, bike – chase across Hawkins.”

“Damn,” muttered Will.

“Yeah. We met up with Lucas at Elm and Cherry, but then they surrounded us and they would have gotten us if El hadn’t flipped the van in front of us with her mind.” Mike started getting animated with his hands. “We were going down the hill towards Oak, y’know, and the van was heading right for us, but then El just –” he gestured – “whoosh, right over our heads.”

“No way!”

“Yeah, it was awesome! And actually, that’s what got Lucas to accept my apology. And he apologized. And El apologized too. So he shook my hand, but then we had to hide from the Bad Men. We were in the junkyard now, by the way, which should’ve been safe, but this is the military – ‘cause apparently the gate El created is in Hawkins Lab, which, like, of course it was – and they had literally sent out helicopters to look for us. So we hid our bikes under an old abandoned bus and hid in the bus.”

“How long were you there for?” asked Will, enthralled by the story as he let Mike play with his hands.

“All afternoon,” said Mike. “The helicopters kept circling. But then Nancy called on the walkie.”

“Nancy, your sister Nancy?”

“Yeah, I know, weird, right?”

“How’d she even get a walkie?”

“Uh, yours. She had been monster hunting with your brother, and I guess they’d joined up with your mom and Chief Hopper.”

“Weird, but okay.”

“Yeah, I dunno. Dustin and I thought it was a trap. Like Lando. Lucas thought it was legit. But then Hopper got on the radio, so we had to answer, y’know?”

“Mmm,” Will agreed.

“So we waited for a few minutes, then heard cars showing up.”

“Cars? Like, in the plural?”

“Yeah, the Bad Men had found us.”

“Oh, shit. So it _was_ a trap.”

Mike chuckled. “No, actually. It was just a coincidence. Correlation –”

“– does not imply causation,” Will finished. He rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Mr. Clarke.”

Mike continued on, ignoring him. “And we’re actually really lucky we had talked to the Chief, ‘cause the Bad Men were about to find us when he showed up and knocked them all out.”

“Oh, damn.”

“Yeah, it was kinda bad-ass. So anyways, he took the four of us back to your place, where we met up with your mom and brother and my sister.”

“Right, yeah.”

“So first we had to catch each other up – Dustin and Lucas and me summarized everything I’ve been telling you, and Nancy talked about Barb and monster-hunting, and I guess Hopper and your mom had been investigating the government side of things? They didn’t say too much. But Hopper had been in the Lab, he’d seen the gate. So we finally knew where it was. But we had to know where _you_ were, first, before they went to rescue you. El tried, but the walkie was too weak, and she was drained already, from saving me earlier, plus the van.”

“So she has a spell recharge period?”

“Yeah, I dunno if it’s exactly defined, but it’s like a rechargeable battery, I think. But she said she could find you with a sensory deprivation tank.”

“What – why? Because water’s a conductor?”

“Uh, I don’t think so – I mean, it is, but I don’t think that’s why. It’s just easier for her to concentrate, it’s more familiar – it’s how they had her do it at the Lab.”

“Gotcha, makes sense.”

“Anyways, none of us knew how to build a sensory deprivation tank, so we called Mr. Clarke.”

“You called Mr. Clarke on a Saturday night?”

“Well, Dustin did.”

“And did he know?”

“Of course. Mr. Clarke knows _everything_.”

Will rolled his eyes.

“We had your kiddie pool, but we needed, like, 1,500 pounds of salt.”

“You – what.”

“Yeah, I know, right. But apparently the town stores all of its road salt in one of those sketchy buildings behind the middle school, and Hopper knew about it, so it wasn’t a problem."

“Wasn’t a – what if it snows?”

“Guess we won’t have school then,” Mike grinned.

Will laughed, bouncing mike’s head on his chest, causing him to laugh too. Once they recovered themselves, Will placed a hand under Mike’s chin and he tilted his head back to look at Will’s eyes. “What’s up?” he asked, looking at Will’s glazed eyes.

Will leaned down slightly, then shook his head, centering himself. “Nothing,” he said, awkwardly moving his hands back down to Mike’s chest. “So did it work?”

“Yeah,” said Mike, frowning, but allowing himself to be re-directed. “Yeah, we got it all set up in the gym, and El got in, and she looked for Barb, but she was - gone –” Mike tightened his grip on Will’s trembling hands – “and then she looked for you and found you in Castle Byers, like you remember, and we heard you! On the radio. We knew you were alive.”

“Barely,” whispered Will.

“Enough,” said Will fiercely. “Enough to get you back. So Hopper and your mom went off to the Lab to get you, and Nancy and Jonathan snuck off – no, not to suck face. Probably. I think they were trying to bait the monster so it wouldn’t disrupt the rescue mission, but they kinda disappeared without telling us anything. So it was just El in the middle school. I wanted to do something, but Dustin and Lucas wanted to stick to the plan and just sit tight.” His knee bounced. “Well, Lucas did, anyways. I think Dustin just wanted to find that secret stash of pudding he’s always going on about.”

“Wait. Does it actually exist?”

“Yes,” groaned Mike. “We’re never gonna hear the end of it.”

“He must have been thrilled!”

“Yeah, it’s not like we had anything else to do. I was just, uh, talking to El.”

Will watched him turn red and scratch his neck. “Talking to El about?” he prompted, his stomach twisting.

“Well, I had to explain to her what pudding is. Then I invited her to move in with my family, and I asked her to the snowball, and I – I kissed her?”

“…Oh.” Will’s stomach properly fell now.

“Yeah, I know. It was dumb. And it’s not like it matters now anyways. Stupid.”

Will gently massaged Mike’s hand back open. “It’s not dumb. I mean, uh… what was it like?” He was a twelve-year-old boy. He was allowed to be curious. “That was your first kiss, right?”

“Yeah. It was kinda weird, honestly,” Mike admitted. “Like all the books and movies say you’re supposed to feel sparks or fireworks or something, but I just – didn’t. Don’t tell the guys, okay?” he said, suddenly worried. “I don’t want them to think I’m queer or something, I dunno. I’m just – not ready yet, like we talked about, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Will agreed, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, “…Yeah.”

“Anyways, then I heard a car pull up, and I figured it was Nancy, but it actually the Bad Men. They somehow knew where we were… Maybe Hopper sold out El to rescue you?”

Will wrinkled his nose. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

Mike just shrugged. “Well, we had moved to the cafeteria, anyways, so Dustin’s pudding literally saved us. At least for a bit.

“They got us once, but El made them all bleed out their eyes, then they got us again – this man Eleven called Papa – but then the Demogorgon showed up, ‘cause of all the blood. And as they tried to take it down, we escaped.” His voice was getting more and more clipped and ragged.

“And then we were trapped in an eighth grade science room, and the Demogorgon burst in, and El was out cold, so Lucas used the wrist rocket, but that just annoyed it and didn’t actually do anything. Then El woke up, and she – she destroyed it.” His voice cracked.

“How?” asked Will. _How do we know for sure?_

“I mean, with her powers. I don’t – know exactly. I couldn’t watch,” Mike admitted. “But when I opened my eyes, she was – gone.” Some tears leaked down his cheek.

Will pulled Mike a little higher so he could rest his chin on top of Mike’s head. “I got you,” he whispered as he let Mike cry.

After a minute or so, the worst seemed to be past. Will carefully wiped away Mike’s tears with his thumb, and Mike flipped over so that he was lying facedown on top of Will. “Need cuddles,” he muttered.

Will chuckled. “Come here, buddy,” he said. “Let’s find a position where you’re not crushing my ribcage.”

“Don’t wanna,” Mike mumbled. As Mike shifted slightly, Will froze.

He was hard.

It’s not like they’d never popped boners around each other before – they were adolescent boys, for god’s sake – but it had always been a subject for giggles and gentle teasing. It was decidedly less amusing to find yourself with an erection when your best friend was literally sprawled out on top of you. _Shit_. He didn’t think Mike had noticed yet, but it would only be a matter of time. And ordinarily, he might have been able to laugh it off, but he’d had all that time to think and realize things in the Upside-Down and – He couldn’t ruin the moment. Taking care of Mike – that was what mattered right now. Not his stupid almost-teenage hormones.

“Mikeee,” he whined, feigning nonchalance what he thought was fairly convincingly. He started to roll onto his side, and Mike finally relented, assisting Will in the re-positioning. They ended up on their sides, Mike’s head still tight against Will’s chest, their legs all tangled up and Will’s crotch positioned a discreet distance from Mike’s body. Will forced himself to calm down and listen to Mike’s breathing and pulse and feel Mike’s warmth and smell Mike’s hair and – shit, that boner wasn’t going away anytime soon, was it.

“Boys,” Joyce called after a few minutes, “I’m going to take a bath tonight, so you should get ready for bed sometime in the next couple minutes.”

Mike just groaned and Will stroked his hair. “Okay, Mom,” he shouted back. He turned his attention back to Mike. “Hey, Mike,” he whispered into Mike’s scalp, “Will you let me help you up?”

Mike groaned again. Will rolled his eyes fondly and slowly began untangling himself from Mike. Mike whined in the back of his throat and half-heartedly tried to grab at Will, but Will wasn’t having any of it. He started tugging on Mike’s wrists. “I will literally drag your skinny ass to the bathroom if you don’t get up. We’ll be back here before you know it.”

“What, with those scrawny arms?” Mike countered. Will gave a sharp tug and Mike’s front half flopped off the bed. “Shit, shit, Byers, I’m coming, I’m coming!” He scrambled to try to regain his balance, but just ended up tumbling awkwardly onto the floor. He slowly got up and dusted himself off before shuffling after Will.

“Uh, aren’t you forgetting something?” Will asked.

Mike blinked at him.

Will sighed and reached over Mike to pull his toiletry bag out from one of the drawers behind his bed and laid it in Mike’s palms. “Here ya go,” he said fondly.

Mike shook his head to clear his mind, then smiled at Will. “Wow, sorry, I’m out of it. Thanks, man.”

“Yeah, yeah, now come on!”

They brushed their teeth and flossed side-by-side, like always. As Will finished flossing, Mike stared at his forehead in the mirror. “What’s wrong?” Will asked.

“Nothing,” Mike grunted. “Just feels like some acne’s gonna break out soon.” He made a face.

“Well, I don’t see anything,” Will reassured him, throwing out his floss and pulling Mike’s hand away from his forehead. “And you know you’re not supposed to pick at it, right?”

“Yeah, I paid attention in health class –” Will snorted – “Wow, rude. Enough attention, anyways. Not all of us can have perfect attention or clear skin like you.”

Will preened. “You think my skin is perfect, huh?” he teased.

“I think all of you is perfect,” Mike said, turning away from the mirror to face Will directly, smiling sweetly down at him.

“Shut up,” mumbled Will, looking down at the floor.

“Hey, I mean it!” Mike tilted Will’s chin back up to meet his eyes.

“Yeah, whatever.” Will was feeling very flustered. He broke free of Mike’s grip and headed for the door. “Weren’t you the one who wanted to get back to bed?”

Mike caught Will’s elbow, stopping him from leaving, but he just shrugged when Will looked back. “You’re… you’re sure you don’t see anything on my forehead?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Moron,” Will teased.

Mike made a face, but accepted Will’s judgment. “Okay, fine. Bed?”

“Bed,” agreed Will. He went down to his mom’s room to let her know that they were done in the bathroom. When he returned to his room, he was confronted with Mike’s scrawny, pale white ass.

Will could feel his entire body flush as he averted his eyes immediately. Of course they’d seen each other naked – they changed at sleepovers, but everything felt different now. _Fuck_. When he managed to look again, Mike thankfully had his pajama bottoms on. He grabbed his own pajamas to change into. “Can you, uh, grab your sleeping bag?” he managed to squeak out. Mike went rummaging in Will’s closet and Will used the opportunity to quickly strip down and change into his own pajamas with his back turned. That all taken care of, he could finally look Mike in the eye again.

He went over to the closet to grab the extra pillows and blankets and helped Mike get set up on the floor next to his bed, like always. Will laid down on his own bed, and smiled as he listened to Mike call to check in on Dustin and Lucas from the other room (although he frowned when he also tried to call El on the radio). Then Mike got up to turn off the lights.

Will froze.

The hospital always had its emergency lights on, and the machines around him had always lit up the room at least a little bit. But now the curtain was drawn and the room was pitch black and this was decidedly not okay. He tried to keep his breathing under control, but that seemed to be a losing proposition right now. Usually he and Mike would be talking by now, but he could feel his heart speed up and his stomach clench and his body start to shake. His breath kept catching and he started to sniffle. When an embarrassing whimper came from the back of his throat, Mike finally spoke up.

“Will?” he whispered. Will only managed to make a pitiful noise in response. Mike sat up to peer over the edge of the bed. “What’s wrong?”

Will’s eyes made contact with Mike’s and he was able to use that to center himself. “Dark,” he managed.

“Dark?” repeated Mike. “Oh, shit. Dark.” He jolted up and almost tripped as he leaped to flip the lights back on. He turned back to see Will curled up on himself in a ball, hyperventilating. Just as quickly, he rushed back to the bed and flung himself around Will.

“I’m here, Will,” he whispered, hanging on tightly.

Slowly, Will began to relax muscle by muscle. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled when he was finally able to speak again.

“Sorry?” Mike pulled back slightly in confusion. “Sorry for what?”

“For –” Will gestured vaguely at himself. “I’m twelve years old and I can’t sleep in the dark? It’s pathetic!”

“Hey, no, don’t say that!”

“But –”

“No. Remember when I said you’re the bravest person I know? I wasn’t just saying that. I meant it. I know _I_ couldn’t have lasted a day in that place, never mind an entire week. So don’t ever think you’re pathetic.

“But –”

“Nope. Uh-uh. And I have an idea. I’ll be right back.” Mike went to stand up, but Will latched onto his wrist and wouldn’t let go. “Will, can – oh,” he said, realization dawning. “Come with me?” he asked gently. “I’d offer to carry you, but I have, uh, what was it? Oh, yeah. Scrawny little arms.”

Will just shrugged. “I stand by what I said.”

“Okay, so come with me then,” Mike urged. “Do you trust me?”

Will nodded and slowly uncurled himself. He passively followed Mike to the living room, where he grabbed a box of Christmas lights, and then followed Mike back to his room. Mike plugged in the Christmas lights so they softly glowed in the corner. “Better?” he asked quietly as Will slipped back in the bed.

“I think so?”

“Is this okay?” Mike asked as he turned the lights off. The Christmas lights remained glowing in the corner.

Will thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, actually. Thanks, Mike.”

Mike smiled as he settled back down into his sleeping bag. “Of course.” A comfortable silence fell between them.

“Hey, Will?” Mike asked after a few minutes of staring at the ceiling.

“Mmm?”

“You said you’ve been having nightmares still?”

Will stiffened. “I – yeah. Uh, sometimes.”

“Me too,” affirmed Mike. “Have you found anything that helps?”

Will’s mouth twisted. “No, I wish. Well, uh…” he trailed off.

“Well, what?”

Will hesitated. “You remember those first couple nights in the hospital when you slept with me?”

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t have any nightmares then.”

“Oh, yeah. I didn’t either, come to think of it. Huh.” Will didn’t reply so Mike continued. “I’m coming up there, Byers, if that’s okay?”

“You – you don’t have to do that, Mike.”

“I know,” chirped Mike, standing up. “I want to.”

“I –” But before Will could finish his thought, Mike had managed to slip under the covers and wrap himself around Will.

“I’m here,” he whispered. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

Will didn’t say anything, but just sighed in contentment, settling into Mike. After a few minutes, their breathing had evened out and both were lost to sleep.


	9. Paladin

**Sunday, November 20, 1983**

The next morning, Will slowly regained consciousness. He tensed momentarily, trying to figure out where he was, but then he heard a breath catch behind him and – oh, that was Mike, so wherever he was, he was safe – and then the details gradually flowed back to him. He kept his eyes closed, just drinking in the physical sensations. He could feel the softness and weight of his own blankets instead of the light, scratchy hospital sheets. He could feel the sun pushing against his eyelids – his shades worked well enough, but weren’t particularly great at keeping his room dark. Still, it must be pretty late in the morning for it to be that bright in his room. He could feel Mike’s arms wrapped around his torso, Mike’s body spooning behind him, Mike’s drying drool on the pillow, Mike’s – oh. It’s not like they hadn’t joked about their morning wood before. Will shifted slightly to lessen the awkwardness when Mike woke up, but Mike just made a noise deep in his throat and pulled Will closer to him. Will smiled as he drifted back to sleep.

The next time he woke up, he felt a finger lightly twirling the hair on the side of his head, so he knew Mike must be awake. “Hey,” he croaked, then coughed.

“Hey, you,” Mike whispered, continuing to play with Will’s hair.

“D’you know what time it is?”

“Nope. Don’t know. Don’t care.”

Will made a noise of contentment. He started to roll over, but Mike tensed, holding him in place, whining.

“I’m not leaving, doofus,” Will muttered. “Just rolling over.”

“Oh, okay,” Mike replied brightly.

Will slowly activated the muscles that allowed him to do just that, and he nestled his head into Mike’s chest, tucked under his chin. “Is this okay?” he asked quietly.

“Hmm?”

“Is this okay?” he repeated, a little louder.

“Okay?” Mike’s grip tightened around Will. “Williford Byers, this is more than okay. It’s –” He cut off.

Will gave him a moment, but then prompted him when it seemed he wasn’t going to continue. “It’s?”

“It’s nice to just – know that you’re here. I didn’t have any nightmares last night, did you?”

Will thought back. “I – no, I don’t think I did.” He smiled as Mike started rubbing his back and shivered.

Mike’s hands paused. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just – feels good.”

Mike blushed. “Oh, well, good.”

They remained like that for a time until Will started squirming. “Gotta pee,” he muttered.

Mike snorted. “Tiny bladder,” he snorted, but let Will get up.

“Shut it.”

They both took turns in the bathroom, then made their way down the hall to the kitchen where Joyce was cooking – “Pancakes?” Will asked excitedly.

“Blueberry pancakes,” she corrected sternly, then looked to Mike as his eyes lit up.

“Mom!” protested Will. “You didn’t have to!”

“I know,” she said seriously. “I wanted to.”

“But don’t you have work or something?”

“Not today, sweetie. Jonathan’s out at a shift, though.”

“Already?” Will sounded surprised.

Joyce snorted. “Already? It’s almost 11:30!” The boys’ eyes widened. “Speaking of which, your mom called, Mike. She wants you home once you eat and get dressed. Her heart broke a little as both boys’ faces fell, but she certainly understood that Karen did want to spend at least some time with her own son. And they’d have to get used to spending time apart until Will could return to school. Plus Jonathan had let her in on Mike’s secret, so it’s not like they couldn’t talk to each other.

“Fine,” Mike conceded.

It didn’t escape Joyce’s notice that they tangled their legs together as they wolfed down their pancakes.

As Mike half-heartedly threw his comics back in his backpack (his dirty clothes just went into Will’s hamper for the next time he slept over), a half-finished drawing on Will’s desk caught his attention. “Hey, Will,” he called, “Is this us?”

“Hmm?” Will replied absently from where he was sprawled on his bed. After a moment, he picked his head up to see what Mike was looking at. He inhaled sharply. “It’s – not done yet,” he clarified, “But, uh, yeah?”

Mike stared down at the sketch of his paladin character reaching down to help Will’s cleric up a small cliff. “It’s really good,” he murmured.

“Thanks,” Will blushed. “You want it for your collection, Wheeler?”

“My what?”

“Weren’t you and Dustin talking about some binder of my drawings you have?”

“Oh. Yeah. That. I mean, if you want it, you should keep it, but –”

“How do you decide what goes in there?” Will asked curiously.

“Huh?”

“How do you decide which of my drawings to keep?”

Mike’s brow remained furrowed for a moment, then relaxed as he laughed. “Will. Dude. I keep them all.”

Will was taken aback. “Since when?”

“Uh, since kindergarten?”

Will’s eyes widened comically. “Oh, god, you’re kidding, right?”

“What?”

“They must be so bad! Even _I_ don’t have drawings saved from back then!”

Mike smiled. “Of course I have them. You made them for me.”

And, well, Will couldn’t exactly argue with that, now could he? Instead, he stood up and wrapped himself around Mike. Mike hummed in contentment.

“Boys?” Joyce called from down the hall. Will reluctantly removed himself from Mike as they headed to the front door.

“Hey,” said Mike. “I’ll strap my walkie to my handlebars, so we can keep talking as I ride back.”

“Until you get past downtown, anyways,” said Will gloomily. Mike just pinched his cheeks and they were nearly wrestling before either of them noticed Joyce watching from the kitchen.

“Sorry, Mrs. Byers,” Mike said sheepishly, ducking his head.

“You’re fine,” she said, shaking her head. “Just get on home before Karen calls again asking where you are!”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Mike, but he still took a while hugging Will before he scurried out the door.

Once Mike had left, she expected Will to stick around, but he rushed down the hall back to his room. “Will, honey?” she called.

“Gotta get my walkie!” he called back. “Mike’s gonna talk to me on the way home!”

She shook her head. _Thank god for Mike Wheeler_. She’d never expected Will to look as content as he had when she’d peeked in his room earlier this morning, never mind so soon after his return.

* * *

Will glanced at his watch. “Uh, Mike,” he said. “Did you get lost?”

“Huh? No.”

“Mike!” he chastised. “You gotta get home! I know you wanna keep talking to me, but you gotta stop riding around downtown and actually get home so your mom lets us hang out again soon!”

“Hmm, you make a compelling argument, but it has one flaw.”

Will rolled his eyes. “What?”

“Well, you see…” Mike drew out the suspense – “I’m in my room right now.”

“Yeah, okay, nice try, Wheeler. I’m serious, though.”

“So am I.”

“Please, just because I was pursued through hell by an inter-dimensional monster doesn’t mean I forgot the walkies don’t reach that far.”

“Didn’t.”

“Huh?”

“ _Didn’t_ reach that far. I, uh, talked with Bob Newby this week, and he kinda set up a radio repeater so now they do. On this channel, anyways.”

“What.”

“A radio repeater, it’s –”

“Mike. Shut up. I – Why?”

“Well, we can usually get by with the phone. But we’re both having nightmares, right? So we’ll just leave our walkies on overnight and we can call whenever we need to. ‘Cause having nightmares alone sucks.”

Tears sparkled in Will’s eyes. “Thank you,” he managed. “I – wow. Thank you.”

“Nah, thank _you_ ,” said Mike casually. “This is a two-way street, you understand? Now I can bug you all the time too!”

“Do your worst, Wheeler,” Will laughed. Maybe being home wasn’t as scary as he’d thought it would be after all.

* * *

After dinner, Nancy watched Mike skulk down to the basement. He’d been quiet all day after getting back from Will’s, holed up either in his room or the basement. That in itself wasn’t unusual, but the lack of periodic interruptions to her focus, either from mysterious crashes, animated phone conversations with his friends, or Mike physically barging into her space, was. On instinct, she decided to follow him down.

Tip-toeing quietly down the stairs, she saw Mike straight ahead of her, sitting on the couch. He was absorbed in looking through some binder or folder. Probably prepping for one of his game sessions, although that didn’t exactly explain the soft smile on his face.

“Hey,” she called softly.

Mike started, slamming the binder shut. “N – Nancy, hey. What’s up?”

“Nothing in particular. I just – you’ve been quiet today. I wanted to check in. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” he said scowling. “Now scram.”

The old Nancy would certainly have given up at this point, turned her back and marched right back up the stairs, content that she had at least tried to do the right thing. But the new Nancy was a little more mature. She hopped down the last couple steps and carefully sat next to Mike on the couch, leaving a little space between them. “Neither of us believes that,” she said, shaking her head. “Did something happen at Will’s? Are you guys okay?”

“What?” Mike looked genuinely confused. “No. We’re good. More than good. I got it set up so I can talk to him on the Supercomms now.”

“You couldn’t before? I thought you all got walkies together last Christmas.”

“Well, yeah. But Will lives so far away that they didn’t reach when we were both at home.”

“But now they do?”

“Yeah! Bob installed a radio repeater on the roof of RadioShack!”

Nancy blinked. “Right, let’s just pretend I understand that and move on.”

“it’s not that –”

“Mike,” interrupted Nancy. “I really don’t care. Plus you’re deflecting.”

“De – what?”

“Deflecting. Avoiding something you don’t want to talk about.”

“No, I’m not!”

Nancy sighed. “So what’s going on?”

Mike made a face. “It’s nothing. It’s stupid.”

Nancy just stared at him, raising an eyebrow.

“Fine!” Mike burst out, raising his hands. “it’s just – I – Will’s been having nightmares, and he sleeps better when I’m there, and I don’t want to leave him all alone tonight.”

Nancy kept her eyebrow raised. “And is he the only having nightmares?”

Mike looked down, swinging his legs.

“I do too, you know?”

“You do?” Mike looked up, surprised.

Nancy bit her lip. “At least you can still sleep over at Will’s,” she said quietly. Her eyes widened. “Oh, shit. Mike, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I lost El,” Mike pointed out. “But I only knew her for a week,” he conceded. “I was pretty much freaking out the entire time when Will was gone. How are you – when you _know_ she’s –”

Nancy pursed her lips. “Steve helps,” she offered. “So does Jonathan.” Mike raised an eyebrow. “Not like that! It’s just like you said – it helps when someone else is there at night, and Jonathan and I did all that monster hunting together and –”

“Oh my god, are you cheating on Steve?”

“What? No! I like Steve!”

“Then why didn’t you go monster hunting with him?”

“Because he was being a douchebag at the time. Also Jonathan got a picture of the Demogorgon and Steve had no idea what was going on. And he ended up helping us bait the Demogorgon that last night anyways.”

“So _that’s_ why he was at the hospital.”

“Exactly. Asking if I like Jonathan is like – it’s like asking if you like Will.”

Mike wrinkled his nose. “What? No! He’s my best friend!”

“Exactly. Jonathan’s just a – good guy. I’m glad I got to know him better.”

“Yeah, he’s kind of a weirdo, but he’s pretty cool, I guess.”

“You’re one to talk!” Nancy poked him.

“At least I’m not dating a dork like Steve Harrington.”

“At least I’m dating someone!”

“…Girls are gross.”

Nancy snorted. “Even El?”

“El doesn’t count. She has superpowers.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I’m serious. I don’t – I thought I might. But I don’t. Not like that. Honest.”

“Okay,” Nancy conceded. “I believe you.”

“Thanks,” Mike deadpanned. “But, like – what do I do if Will calls me on the walkie and he’s having a nightmare and I’m not there and – ?”

Nancy finally reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Just hearing your voice will help. And –” her eyes darted off to the side – “if it’s really an emergency, you can always use my window.”

“Use your – like Steve!”

“What? No!”

“I _saw_ him, Nance.”

“…Oh.” She smiled. “Then yes, like Steve.”

“You know, I thought for the longest time that you were just this boring goody two-shoes. Turns out you can be kinda bad-ass sometimes too.”

“…Thanks?”

Mike stood up to head upstairs, holding his binder. “I know I said it before,” he said, not facing her, “but I really am sorry about Barb. I – know how you feel. If there’s anything I can do…” He trailed off.

“I’ll let you know,” finished Nancy, standing up to hug him. Mike squirmed a little, but let himself be hugged. Maybe Nancy wasn’t so bad after all.

* * *

Will dreamed.

_He was in his bed, but somehow also in Mike’s room. The Party was having a sleepover, but for some reason had opted to sleep in Mike’s bedroom instead of the basement. He peered over the edge of the bed. Dustin and Lucas were in their sleeping bags (Dustin was snoring quite loudly), but Mike’s sleeping bag was empty. Will’s heart clenched._

_He got up and tip-toed over to the door (which was where Mike’s closet usually was) to peer out into the hallway. The bathroom door was open and the room was dark. Where had Mike gone? He wasn’t in the kitchen. He wasn’t in the basement. When Will finally checked the carport, his bike was gone._ Shit _. Will got on his own bike and pedaled off into the night, heedless of the consequences._

_He found himself on the road that led to the top of the quarry, pedaling as hard as he could. He thought he caught glimpses of Mike’s headlight ahead of him, but he wasn’t sure. Finally, he rounded the corner to the cliff. And there was Mike, standing at the edge. “Mike!” he cried out. “There you are! I was so worried!”_

_Mike’s head whipped around and his face twisted. “Oh,” he scoffed. “It’s you. Can’t believe I didn’t figure out you’re a faggot until now.”_

_Will stopped in his tracks. “I. What.”_

_“I woke up to take a piss and heard you moaning my name in your sleep,” Mike sneered. “‘Oh, Mike!’ I just felt so dirty I had to leave. Only one thing for it,” he said, and stepped over the edge._

_“Mike!” screamed Will as he ran over to the edge. But there was no El to save him this time. Only ripples in the lake far below. Before he had time to process, he heard footsteps behind him. Tears streaming down his face, he turned around to see a five-petaled face lunging and –_

He woke up in a cold sweat, all tangled in his blankets. His cheeks were wet as he tried to simultaneously remember and forget what he’d been dreaming. He knew Mike had jumped and there was a Demogorgon, and why couldn’t Mike live closer so –

 _I can call him now_ , he suddenly remembered. He reached down and fumbled around under his bed until he found his walkie.

“Mike,” he sobbed brokenly into the radio. “Mike. Are you there?”

* * *

Mike dreamed.

_He was at school. He’d just bought lunch and went back to their table to sit down (although it wasn’t the table they usually sat in real life). Dustin and Lucas were there, but no Will. “Where’s –” he started before he caught himself – “Right, he’s still resting at home, never mind.”_

_“Huh?” asked Dustin around a mouthful of sandwich. “Who’s at home?”_

_“Will, obviously.”_

_Dustin frowned at him. “What? He’s right over there,” he said, pointing._

_“With_ Jenny _,” added Lucas, winking._

_Mike frowned in confusion as he glanced to where Dustin was pointing. As advertised, there indeed was Will, sitting next to Jenny Hayes. Their heads were close together and they seemed to be laughing at something. Will’s arm was around her and she leaned over and kissed his cheek. Mike couldn’t stop staring._

_Someone tapped his shoulder. “What?” he asked without turning around._

_“Like what you see?” asked Troy. Mike whipped around to see him grinning. “Yeah, I’m surprised too. Turns out I was wrong. I thought it was Byers that was queer this whole time. Turns out that you’re the fairy! Betcha wish it was you over there with Will instead of Jenny, huh?”_

_Mike panicked, seeing the dawning expressions of horror on Dustin’s and Lucas’s faces. “No, it’s not like that!” he spluttered. “I like El!”_

_“Oh, the freak? Then how come you didn’t even notice her?”_

_“Yeah, Mike,” demanded El, who was suddenly sitting right next to Dustin. “Do you like Will more than me?”_

_“No, of course not!”_

_“Then why did you save him and not me?”_

_“I couldn’t!”_

_“Well, what about now?” asked Troy. He snapped his finger and everyone disappeared from the cafeteria except for Will, El, and Mike. There were heavy footsteps outside and an all-too-familiar chittering._

_Mike stayed frozen as the Demogorgon burst through the cafeteria door and killed both El and Will. He couldn’t save anyone. He just sat there as the monster headed for him, opening its mouth and –_

He woke up, out of breath. He grounded himself. He was in his bed, at home. The monster was dead. No one knew he had feelings for Will – of course they didn’t. Because he _didn’t_ have feelings for Will beyond best friend.

For some reason, that didn’t help with his breathing.

Suddenly, his radio crackled to life. “Mike! Mike. Are you there?”

“Will! Yes, I’m here. What’s wrong?”

“Nightmare,” Will managed.

“Okay. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

“What?”

“It’ll probably take me like twenty to get over there. Can you hold on that long?”

“I – Mike – How?”

“I’ll sneak out.”

“But your parents?”

“They won’t care. Or notice, probably. And you need me. I don’t care what they think. This is non-negotiable. Unless – you don’t want me to come?” he asked, suddenly self-conscious.

“No! I, uh, it would be great if you were here.”

“Your wish is my command. Over and out.”

He hurriedly changed into some clothes and went to rap on Nancy’s door. On the second rap, she mumbled, “Mom! Five more minutes!”

Mike couldn’t wait any longer. He pushed open the door. “Nance,” he whispered. “It’s me, Mike. I need your window!”

“Mike?” she asked sleepily, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “Window? What? Oh! Will?”

“Yeah. He needs me. Now. Cover for me if I’m not back in the morning?”

“Yeah, of course. Here, let me help you. Steve’s a lot taller than you.”

With Nancy’s help, Mike made it down in one piece. He grabbed his bike from the carport and rode off into the night.

* * *

Will was curled up under his blankets, shaking, the walkie clutched between his hands. Mike was alive. He was coming. He kept peeking out at his bedside clock. Time was moving so slowly. It had only been fifteen minutes. _Mike should be here soon. Where is he? He should be here by now. But what if – Oh, god. What if he went to the quarry instead?_

Will was about to get out from his covers and start biking to the quarry when he heard a rap on his window. His head shot out and – there he was. Mike was here.

He stumbled out of bed, still breathing heavily, and fumbled to open the window. He helped Mike stumble in, barely managing to catch him and prevent both of them from tumbling to the floor. “You’re so cold,” he whispered.

“Hi, Will. Good to see you too,” Mike quipped. “And yeah, it’s kinda cold outside. Can you help warm me up?’ he asked, blowing on his hands.

Will glanced up at him. Normally when Mike said something like that, there was a twinkle in his eye or a quirk of his mouth to show that he was at least half-joking. He just looked earnestly serious now – and cold. Will grabbed Mike’s hands in his own and led him to the bed. “Come on, let’s get you under the covers.”

Mike complied and soon they were situated. “So,” asked Mike after a moment. “Nightmares, huh?”

“…Yeah.” Will tensed up again, but he forced himself to relax so he didn’t squish Mike too badly.

“What about?”

“You’re not gonna ask if I want to talk about them?”

It was dark in the room, but Will could still feel Mike’s unamused eyes on him. “I think you –” he paused – “I think _we_ need to finally talk about them, since they’re not going away.”

“…yeah, you’re right.”

“So?”

“Um.” Will coughed. “Mine are always about you. Or the Demogorgon. Or both. Usually both.”

“Me?” Mike asked in a small voice.

Will frowned, then understood what Mike was asking and held him closer. “Oh, no! No! Not like that! Like.. you’re missing, or hurt, or… decide to jump into the quarry.”

Mike winced. “Was that what happened tonight?”

“I – yeah.”

Mike sniffed and tucked Will’s head under his chin, running his fingers through Will’s hair. “I would never – you have to know – I’m here,” he finally settled on, “And I’ll always he here when you need me.”

“What about you?”

“I, uh – You. And El. Mostly you, though. Either I – you didn’t come back, or you’re in danger again and I can’t save you or –” He started crying and angrily tried to wipe away the tears, but Will wouldn’t let him.

“It’s okay to cry, Mike,” he whispered.

“I know, I know. I just…” He trailed off.

“Just what?”

“I dunno. Fine.”

He lay there and cried for a minute or two, feeling Will’s hands on his back and Will’s tears on his shirt. He finally got himself back under control and felt embarrassed. He needed to be strong for Will. “So, uh,” he asked, “Tell me about your dream tonight.”

“I already –”

“No, like more details.”

“Uh, so we were at a sleepover in your room, and I woke up and you weren’t in your sleeping bag, so I went to look for you and I found you at the quarry. You said some mean things and then you jumped. And then the Demogorgon showed up, but I didn’t even care at that point.”

“What – what did I say?”

Will hesitated. “Just – Troy things.”

“…Got it. You know I would never say anything like that, right? I don’t believe any of those things he says about you.”

“…Right. So, uh, what about you?”

“Um, I was in the cafeteria. You were sitting with, uh, Jennifer Hayes instead of us. Then Troy showed up and said some mean things, then everyone disappeared except you and me and El and the Demogorgon showed up and I couldn’t protect either of you and –”

“Jenny Hayes, huh?” Will asked, biting his lip.

“…yeah. I missed you.”

“You remember when we had that conversation last year about girls and how I didn’t like anyone?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s still – uh, I don’t like any girls like that,” he hastily amended.

“Oh, uh, okay.”

“That’s what you were worried about, right?”

Mike just made a noise in response.

“And, uh, I totally understand if you do now… if you like El, or – or anyone else. You don’t need to lie to make me feel better or anything,” he stammered. Mike didn’t reply. “I mean it, if you like El, then –”

“I thought I did,” Mike cut in. “I really thought I did. But like I told you, I kissed her and – I don’t think that’s what it’s supposed to feel like to like someone, y’know? It didn’t feel like what Dustin and Lucas feel when they’re talking about their crushes. I just wanted it to.”

“And not anyone else either?”

“Nope.”

“…Good,” Will whispered, too softly for Mike to hear.

“Huh?” asked Mike, but Will just shook his head. “So, uh, when are you coming back to school?”

Will shrugged. “I dunno. Probably a week or two still, so hopefully after Thanksgiving.”

“Shit, really?”

“Yeah, everyone wants me to rest more,” Will complained. “You’ll still come over, right?”

“Of course! But school’s – not the same without you.”

“You still have Dustin and Lucas there.”

“Well, yeah, but the Party dynamic’s all off. They just bicker with each other constantly, and there’s no one to keep the peace.”

“…Oh.”

“Yeah. At least I can still see you after school every day!”

“Well, most days. Hawkins Lab still wants me to come in for some follow-up appointments.”

“…Oh.” Mike tensed.

“Hopper will be there. I’ll be safe.”

“Can I come?”

“Uh, I dunno. They’ll probably be during school.”

“I don’t care!”

Will snorted. “Clearly. But there’s no way you’re gonna get out of school to go to my doctor’s appointment. I promise you, neither of our moms will go for that.”

“But –”

“You can’t be with me 24/7, Mike,” Will snapped. “Don’t get me wrong. I want you here most of the time, but you can’t smother me either, remember? I’m not gonna break.”

Mike withdrew. “I know that. I’m not scared for you. I’m – It’s weird being at school so long without you. It doesn’t feel right. For me. But, uh, I can – I should probably get going. Sorry.”

“No!” Will cried. “Mike! That’s not what I meant.” He started shaking again. “Please – stay.” He bit his lip, eyes closed, until he felt Mike’s arms around him again. “We can talk more in the morning, okay? I just wanna sleep now. With you here,” he clarified, “if you wanna stay?”

“Of course,” Mike whispered as he carefully positioned them, Will’s head cradled in the crook of his arm. "Always. A paladin needs his cleric."

Will sighed in contentment. He wasn’t okay. He wouldn’t be okay for a long time. Neither would Mike. But he knew somehow that he _would_ be okay someday, so long as Mike was there by his side. As he slid into sleep, his last thought was how lucky he was that Mike loved him – even if it wasn’t quite in the way he wished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I started writing fanfiction, I had no idea I would end up writing something this large in scale. To those of you who stuck with me, thanks so much, and your kudos and comments are very much appreciated!
> 
> With school starting back up in the nearish future, I likely will not be able to commit to the weekly update schedule I've had over the summer, but I have plenty of ideas and headcanons to keep on with this series. Your ideas for scenes or even just random headcanon "facts" to incorporate are more than welcome! If they fit in with mine, I certainly might incorporate them down the line!


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